LAGOS -The kidnapping of more than 300 Catholic school students is the latest such mass abduction in Nigeria.
Here are some of the worst of recent years:
November 2025 – Gunmen took 303 pupils and 12 staff members from a school in Niger state, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). At least 50 children have escaped.
November 2025 – Gunmen attacked a government girls’ boarding school in Kebbi state, killing the vice principal and taking 25 students. All but one of the girls are still missing.
March 2024 – Gunmen seized more than 200 students and staff in Kaduna state. The students were rescued after two weeks. The government denied paying a ransom.
July 2021 – About 150 students were kidnapped when armed men raided a Baptist school in Kaduna state. The students were released in batches after ransom payments.
May 2021 – Gunmen abducted 136 students from an Islamic school in Niger state. Six of the pupils died in captivity, 15 escaped and the rest were released after three months.
February 2021 – At least 279 girls were kidnapped by gunmen from a government school in Zamfara state and force-marched into a forest. They were released after a few days, during which they were beaten and threatened with shooting.
December 2020 – Armed men abducted 344 boys from a boarding school in northern Katsina state. Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram claimed responsibility before the students were freed by Nigerian security forces a week later.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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