ABUJA, Nigeria — Gunmen attacked a high school in northwestern Nigeria before dawn on Monday and abducted 25 schoolgirls, police said. One staffer at the school was killed and another was wounded in what was the latest incident of school abductions in Nigeria’s northern region.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abductions from the boarding school in Kebbi state.
The incident took place at 4:00 a.m., according to police, which said the girls were abducted from the dorms. The boarding school is in Maga, in the state’s Danko-Wasagu area, according to police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi.
The assailants were armed with “sophisticated weapons” and exchanged fire with guards before abducting the girls, Kotarkoshi said.
“A combined team is currently combing suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated search and rescue operation aimed at recovering the abducted students and arresting the perpetrators,” the police spokesperson said.
This is the latest school abduction in Nigeria’s northern region, where armed groups have targeted school children since 2014, when Boko Haram abducted 276 students from Chibok in Borno state.
Abductions by armed groups are common in Nigeria’s northern region, where the military has been battling an uptick in attacks by different armed groups this year.
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