The number of victims is increasing and worrying. In Nigeria, the number of students and teachers kidnapped a day earlier at a Catholic school in the center of the country rose to 315, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) announced this Saturday morning.
In a press release, they indicated they had revised their previous report of 227 missing people “after a final verification and census exercise” following the mass abduction that occurred Friday morning.
303 students and 12 teachers
“The total number of abductees… from St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School, Papiri, Agwarra Local Government Area of Niger State, now stands at 303 students and 12 teachers,” according to the association. This figure represents almost half of the school’s enrollment (629 students enrolled). Authorities in neighboring Katsina and Plateau states have ordered the closure of all schools as a precaution.
The Niger State government has also closed many schools, and President Bola Tinubu has canceled his international commitments, including his participation in the G20 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, to address the crisis.
Kidnapping of St. Mary came after an armed attack on Monday at a secondary school in neighboring Kebbi state in the northwest, in which 25 girls were kidnapped.
The two mass kidnappings and an attack on a church in the west of the country, which killed two people, came after US President Donald Trump threatened military intervention in Nigeria over what he called a massacre of Christians by radical Islamists.
