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Gunmen have kidnapped over 300 students and teachers in one of the largest group abductions in modern Nigerian history, as stated by a religious organization on Saturday.

Escalating Emergency in Educational Institutions

The pre-dawn Friday attack on St Mary's co-educational school in western Nigeria happened just days after gunmen stormed a secondary school in adjacent Kebbi state, abducting 25 young women.

Earlier reports had suggested 227 individuals were seized, but updated numbers surfaced after a comprehensive assessment determined that 303 pupils and 12 teachers had been abducted.

The kidnapped children, ranging between eight and 18 years, account for nearly half of the school's overall enrollment of 629.

Official Reaction and Safety Actions

Local officials have stated that intelligence agencies and law enforcement are presently performing a comprehensive assessment to verify the precise number of missing people.

In response to the increasing security concerns, the state government has ordered the shutting of all schools in the region, with nearby states adopting similar preventive steps.

Furthermore, the federal education department has ordered the temporary shutting of 47 residential high schools throughout the country.

President Bola Tinubu has called off international engagements, including attendance at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on managing the emergency.

Latest Violent Events

The school kidnappings constitute the latest in a sequence of security breaches that have shaken the country, including an assault on a place of worship in western Nigeria where assailants shot dead two individuals and abducted many congregation members during a online broadcast service.

These incidents have taken place against the background of global focus on Nigeria's safety situation.

Past Background

Nigeria continues to be traumatized by the legacy of the mass abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls by jihadist group Boko Haram in Chibok more than a decade ago, with several of those girls still missing.

Firsthand Accounts

In a concerning recording circulated by Christian groups, a distraught school staff member described hearing the sounds of bikes and cars before hearing "forceful banging" on multiple entrances of the school premises.

"Children were crying," the staff member said, recounting her fear while looking for access to the section where the screaming was most intense.

The local Catholic diocese stated that the "assailants operated violently and uninterrupted for almost three hours, moving through sleeping quarters."

Public Response and Concerns

Meanwhile, about 600km away on the periphery of Abuja, worried parents were collecting their students from schools following the shutdown order.

One mother, a 40-year-old nurse, voiced her shock at the magnitude of the abduction, questioning how 300 children could be abducted simultaneously.

She stated that the "authorities is failing to act to address insecurity," and voiced approval for international intervention to "resolve this crisis."

Ongoing Safety Challenges

For years, heavily armed criminal gangs have been conducting killings and abductions for money in rural areas of northern and middle Nigeria, where government control is minimal.

While nobody has taken credit for the latest attacks, criminal groups demanding ransom payments frequently attack schools in rural areas where protection is weak.

These groups maintain bases in vast woodland areas straddling several states in western Nigeria.

Although these bandits have no ideological leanings and are mainly motivated by financial gain, their growing alliance with jihadist groups from the northeastern region has become a significant source of concern for officials and security analysts alike.