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Gunmen have seized in excess of 300 students and teachers in what is considered the largest collective seizures in recent Nigerian history, as stated by a Christian organization on Saturday.

Growing Emergency in School Facilities

The early Friday attack on St Mary's co-educational school in Niger state happened just days after armed men attacked a secondary school in neighboring Kebbi state, abducting 25 female students.

Initial reports had suggested 227 individuals were seized, but new numbers were released after a thorough verification exercise confirmed that 303 pupils and 12 instructors had been abducted.

The abducted pupils, ranging between eight and 18 years, account for nearly half of the school's overall student body of 629.

Government Response and Security Actions

State authorities have announced that security departments and police are currently performing a thorough assessment to verify the precise number of missing people.

In response to the increasing safety concerns, the state government has ordered the shutting of every schools in the state, with nearby states following comparable precautionary steps.

Furthermore, the federal education ministry has directed the provisional shutting of 47 residential high schools throughout the country.

President Bola Tinubu has postponed overseas engagements, including attendance at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to concentrate on handling the crisis.

Recent Violent Events

The school kidnappings constitute the most recent in a sequence of security incidents that have rocked the country, including an attack on a church in western Nigeria where assailants killed two people and abducted numerous congregation members during a live-streamed service.

These events have taken place against the backdrop of international attention on Nigeria's safety situation.

Past Background

Nigeria continues to be scarred by the memory of the mass abduction of nearly 300 female students by extremist group Boko Haram in Chibok over a decade ago, with several of those victims still missing.

Eyewitness Testimonies

In a concerning video clip shared by religious organizations, a distraught employee described hearing the sounds of bikes and vehicles before experiencing "violent banging" on various entrances of the school premises.

"Students were screaming," the witness said, recounting her terror while searching for access to the area where the crying was loudest.

The regional Catholic authority confirmed that the "attackers operated aggressively and uninterrupted for nearly three hours, moving through dormitories."

Public Response and Concerns

At the same time, about 600km away on the outskirts of Abuja, concerned guardians were collecting their children from educational institutions following the shutdown order.

One parent, a 40-year-old nurse, expressed her shock at the magnitude of the abduction, asking how 300 children could be abducted simultaneously.

She stated that the "authorities is not doing enough to combat the security crisis," and expressed approval for external intervention to "resolve this crisis."

Ongoing Safety Challenges

For years, heavily armed criminal gangs have been carrying out killings and abductions for money in rural areas of northern and central Nigeria, where state presence is limited.

While nobody has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, bandit gangs demanding ransom payments frequently attack schools in rural areas where security is inadequate.

These groups maintain bases in vast forest areas spanning multiple states in the west of Nigeria.

Although these criminals have no ideological leanings and are mainly driven by monetary profit, their increasing cooperation with extremist groups from the northeastern region has become a significant cause of concern for authorities and experts alike.