Gunmen have kidnapped hundreds of students and teachers from two schools in Nigeria in the worst case of abductions since more than 270 girls from Chibok town were snatched from their school in 2014.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said on Sunday that 50 pupils had escaped and had been reunited with their families days after they were abducted from a Catholic school in central Niger state.
So what do we know about the latest abductions? And why are children being targeted by armed groups?
What happened?
Gunmen abducted 303 children and 12 teachers during an attack on Saint Mary’s Catholic School in Nigeria’s north-central Niger state, according to CAN, the largest Christian organisation in the country. Local media reported that the abductions and attack took place on Friday in Niger’s remote Papiri area.
Those kidnapped included both male and female students aged 10 to 18, said Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, the chairman of CAN’s Niger chapter. Yohanna visited the school campus on Friday.
The attack took place just days after gunmen targeted the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the neighbouring Kebbi state’s Maga town, 170km (106 miles) away, and abducted 25 schoolgirls.
No group has claimed the recent acts of abductions.
How many children are still missing, and what is the status of the rescue operation?
Fifty of the children escaped captivity on Friday and Saturday and have been reunited with their families.
This means that 253 children are still being held by kidnappers. The 12 teachers who were kidnapped are also still in captivity.
The Nigerian authorities said tactical squads, alongside local hunters, have been deployed to rescue the children and school staff.
Who is behind the kidnappings?
No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Ibrahim M Ndamitso, a journalist who has been following this story very closely, told Al Jazeera that the incident took place in the north of Niger, which has “predominantly suffered banditry activity in recent times”.
Ndamitso, who is based in Minna, the capital of Niger state, added that the bandit groups have made “it a transit point around the north of Niger, taking animals, stealing people’s cows, picking people for ransoms and all of these things”.
Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst and a Nigerian human rights lawyer based in London, told Al Jazeera that such kidnapping attacks, especially in the northwest and the north-central parts of Nigeria, are carried out for economic motives.
“What these gangs do normally is to keep these children in captivity for weeks, sometimes months, and extort ransoms from either their families or from the government,” Bukarti said.
“These ransoms can run into hundreds of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars before releasing them.”
Are these kidnappings religiously motivated?
It is unlikely.
Cases of kidnapping, especially for ransom, are on the rise in Nigeria. However, they are carried out by amorphous groups of armed bandits.
These bandits do not seem to be affiliated with any religious or armed groups such as Boko Haram or the ISIL affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP), whose attacks are motivated by a sectarian agenda.
As of 2020, Muslims made up a majority of Nigeria’s population, accounting for 56.1 percent of the population, while Christians comprised 43.4 percent, according to estimates by the Pew Research Center.
The recent abductions have brought back the memory of the mass kidnapping of girls from Chibok, Nigeria, dozens of whom are still missing nearly 12 years later.
Armed group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from Chibok in Borno state in April 2014. Some of the kidnapped were Muslims. Many captives were encouraged to convert to Islam, while others were forced to join Boko Haram or to marry fighters from the group.
Between 2016 and 2017, the Nigerian military rescued or secured the release of 108 girls through prisoner exchanges, and about 20 others escaped in the past two years. As of last year, about 90 of the girls abducted in Chibok still remain missing.
More than 1,400 Nigerian students have been kidnapped since 2014. The recent kidnapping case is the 13th such incident in the past 11 years, Bukarti, the security analyst and lawyer, told Al Jazeera.
Are Christians being targeted in Nigeria?
Christian farming communities have been facing increased attacks in central Nigeria from bandits and cattle herders. They have accused the government of failing to arrest perpetrators and provide security.
The recent attacks on schools and some churches have drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who has claimed that Nigeria’s Christians are facing genocide. He has threatened United States military intervention in Nigeria, alleging that the country is failing to protect Christians from persecution. He also threatened to cut aid to Nigeria.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Pope Leo XIV has also called for the release of the kidnapped students.
“I make a heartfelt appeal for the immediate release of the hostages and urge the competent authorities to take appropriate and timely decisions to ensure their release,” the pope said on Sunday.
Nigeria’s government has admitted to a security problem, but has denied the claims that Christians are being persecuted.
The government has dubbed some of the attacks, attributed to the mostly Muslim Fulani pastoral ethnic group, a “local farmer-herdsmen crisis”.
Christian groups in Nigeria have also rejected the assertion that faith was the sole reason behind the attacks and kidnappings. The Christian Association of Nigeria said that foreign groups were looking to exploit domestic crises.
How is the government responding?
On Friday, Nigeria’s government ordered 47 colleges across the country to close immediately. Additionally, the regional government of Niger state has ordered all schools, whether private or public, to be closed down, Ndamitso said.
“Hundreds of schools are closed right now, and therefore our children’s education will be interrupted,” Bukarti said. “It is very unfortunate because this indicates that the Nigerian education system is under attack.”
On Sunday, during a meeting with security chiefs, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered the hiring of 30,000 more police officers. He additionally ordered that police officers be removed from VIP protection services so that they can focus on core duties, especially in remote areas that are prone to attacks.
The government has also declared that Nigeria’s minister of defence will be deployed to Niger State, Ndamitso noted.
Nigeria is plagued by security problems as Boko Haram is waging a deadly rebellion in the northeast and as criminal gangs operate in the northwest. The country has also been racked by communal violence.
More than 10,000 people have been killed and hundreds kidnapped since Tinubu was elected president in 2023. As many as three million people remain displaced by the violence.
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