LAGOS - Gunmen kidnapped 227 pupils and teachers from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, officials said on Friday, in the second brazen school abduction in a week.
All of the 215 students taken from St Mary's school in Niger state were girls, according to a spokesman for the Christian Association of Nigeria which added that 12 teachers were also abducted.
Amid mounting fears over security in Africa's most populous nation, authorities in the nearby states of Katsina and Plateau ordered all schools to close as a precautionary measure.
The Niger state government closed many schools. President Bola Tiubu cancelled international engagements, including attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to handle the crisis which came after gunmen on Monday stormed a secondary school in Kebbi state in northwestern Nigeria, abducting 25 girls.
The two abduction operations and an attack on a church in the west of the country, in which two people were killed, have happened since US President Donald Trump threatened military action over the killing of Christians in Nigeria.
Nigeria is still scarred by the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by Boko Haram jihadists at Chibok in Borno state. Some were held for years.
St Mary's school is in Papiri in the Agwarra area of Niger state.
The Catholic Church in the area said in a statement that "armed attackers invaded" the school between 1:00 am and 3:00 am, abducting pupils, teachers and a security guard, who was shot.
A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the St Mary's children had probably been taken to the Birnin Gwari forest in nearby Kaduna state.
The Niger state government accused the Catholic school of defying orders to temporarily close all boarding schools in parts of the state following an intelligence report of an "increased threat level" in areas bordering Kebbi.
Niger state police said its tactical units and the military were searching for the pupils. It said security agencies were "combing the forests with a view to rescue the abducted students".
Nigeria's president put security forces on high alert and sent defence minister Alhaji Bello Matawalle to lead the search for the Kebbi school girls.
His office said the minister had "experience in dealing with banditry and mass kidnapping", after he secured the release of 279 students aged between 10 and 17 who had been kidnapped from a secondary school in 2021 in northwestern Zamfara state.