The country where nearly 1,500 children have been abducted from schools in just five years

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.