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Fifty of the 315 children kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria’s Niger State on Friday have escaped. <\/p>\n
The Christian Association of Nigeria says they have been reunited with their families.<\/p>\n
A major military-led search and rescue operation is under way for the remaining 265 children and 12 teachers who were taken with them.<\/p>\n
Calling for the release of the abductees, Pope Leo XIV expressed “immense sadness” and urged the authorities to act swiftly.<\/p>\n
Authorities in several Nigerian states ordered schools to shut following the mass abduction in Niger and another smaller hostage-taking in Kebbi state on Monday when 20 pupils were kidnapped from a boarding school. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Orders were given for many schools to close in the states of Kebbi, Niger, Katsina, Yobe and Kwara.<\/p>\n
News of the children’s escape brought welcome relief for families and for a country that has been agonising over the fate of hundreds of schoolchildren abducted in Nigeria’s northwest. <\/p>\n
According to a Christian group involved in the case, the pupils managed to escape between Friday and Saturday in what is being described as a brave and risky attempt to flee their captors.<\/p>\n
The students and teachers were taken from St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state. earlier reports spoke of 303 students and 12 teachers being taken. <\/p>\n
Their number surpasses the 276 abducted during the infamous Chibok mass abduction of 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n Local police say armed men stormed St Mary’s at around 02:00 (01:00 GMT), abducting students staying there.<\/p>\n Niger state governor Mohammed Umaru Bongo announced on Saturday that all schools in the area would close, warning that was “not a time for blame game”.<\/p>\n Dominic Adamu, whose daughters attend the school but were not taken, told the BBC: “Everybody is weak… It took everybody by surprise.”<\/p>\n One distressed woman tearfully told the BBC that her nieces, aged six and 13, had been kidnapped, adding: “I just want them to come home.”<\/p>\n The military, police and local vigilantes are conducting a search for the children, combing nearby forests and remote routes believed to have been used by the gunmen.<\/p>\n Authorities in Niger state said St Mary’s School had disregarded an order to close all boarding facilities following intelligence warnings of a heightened risk of attacks. The school has not commented on that allegation.<\/p>\n The kidnapping of people for ransom by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, has become a major problem in many parts of Nigeria.<\/p>\n The payment of ransoms has been outlawed in an attempt to cut the supply of money to the criminal gangs, but it has had little effect.<\/p>\n On Monday, more than 20 schoolgirls, who the BBC has been told are Muslim, were kidnapped from a boarding school in Kebbi state.<\/p>\n Authorities there have now ordered all secondary schools and colleges to close.<\/p>\n A church was also attacked further south in Kwara state, with two people killed and 38 others abducted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nigerian President Bola Tinubu postponed foreign trips – including to this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa – in order to address the security concerns.<\/p>\n