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Armed attackers have kidnapped in excess of 300 schoolchildren and staff in one of the biggest collective seizures in modern Nigerian times, as reported by a Christian organization on the weekend.

Growing Emergency in School Institutions

The Friday morning assault on St Mary's co-educational school in Niger state happened just days after armed men invaded a secondary school in adjacent Kebbi state, seizing 25 girls.

Earlier reports had suggested 227 individuals were taken, but updated figures were released after a thorough verification exercise confirmed that 303 students and 12 teachers had been kidnapped.

The kidnapped pupils, aged between eight and 18 years, constitute nearly half of the school's total enrollment of 629.

Official Reaction and Security Measures

Local officials have stated that intelligence departments and police are presently conducting a comprehensive head count to verify the exact number of abducted people.

In response to the growing security concerns, the state government has mandated the shutting of all schools in the state, with neighboring states following comparable preventive steps.

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

President Bola Tinubu has cancelled international engagements, including attendance at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to concentrate on addressing the emergency.

Latest Security Events

The educational institution abductions constitute the most recent in a sequence of safety breaches that have rocked the country, including an attack on a place of worship in western Nigeria where assailants shot dead two individuals and seized numerous congregation members during a online broadcast service.

These incidents have occurred against the background of global attention on Nigeria's security situation.

Past Context

Nigeria remains scarred by the legacy of the mass abduction of almost 300 female students by jihadist group Boko Haram in Chibok more than a ten years ago, with some of those victims still unaccounted for.

Firsthand Accounts

In a concerning video clip circulated by religious groups, a frightened employee recounted hearing the noise of motorcycles and vehicles before experiencing "violent banging" on various gates of the compound.

"Students were crying," the witness said, describing her terror while looking for access to the section where the crying was most intense.

The local Catholic diocese confirmed that the "attackers operated violently and without interruption for nearly three hours, searching dormitories."

Public Reaction and Concerns

Meanwhile, about 600km away on the periphery of Abuja, concerned guardians were collecting their students from educational institutions following the closure order.

One parent, a 40-year-old healthcare worker, expressed her disbelief at the scale of the abduction, asking how 300 students could be taken at once.

She concluded that the "government is not doing enough to curb insecurity," and voiced approval for international intervention to "resolve this crisis."

Continuing Security Issues

For years, heavily armed bandit groups have been carrying out killings and kidnappings for money in rural areas of northern and central Nigeria, where government control is minimal.

While nobody has claimed responsibility for the recent incidents, bandit gangs demanding ransom payments often attack schools in countryside locations where protection is weak.

These groups maintain camps in extensive woodland areas spanning several states in the west of Nigeria.

Although these criminals have no ideological leanings and are primarily motivated by monetary profit, their increasing cooperation with jihadist groups from the northeastern region has become a major cause of worry for authorities and experts alike.