Armed attackers in Nigeria kidnap 25 girls from boarding school

Gunmen kidnapped 25 girls from a boarding school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State and killed at least one staffer, authorities said Monday.

The schoolgirls were taken around 4 a.m. and no group immediately claimed responsibility for the incident.

Police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi told The Associated Press the gunmen had “sophisticated weapons” and exchanged fire with guards before abducting the girls.

“A combined team is currently combing suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated search and rescue operation aimed at recovering the abducted students and arresting the perpetrators,” he said, adding that one person was killed and another was injured.

NIGERIAN FILM RAISES AWARENESS ABOUT DOZENS OF GIRLS ABDUCTED FROM SCHOOL IN 2014

A woman looks on as she walks past a classroom in Shehu Kangiwa Model Primary School in Argungu, Kebbi State, in northern Nigeria on April 12, 2025. (Leslie Fauvel / AFP via Getty Images)

Abdulkarim Abdullahi Maga, a resident who said his daughter and granddaughter were abducted in the raid, told the AP that the attackers entered the school with motorcycles.

AMERICAN MISSIONARY KIDNAPPED IN NIGER BY SUSPECTED ISLAMIST MILITANTS, SOURCES SAY

“They first went straight to the teacher’s house and killed him before killing the guard,” said Maga.

The latest abductions come amid a string of mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria in recent years.

In 2024, 280 students were abductedfrom a school in Kaduna State and at least 200 others, mostly internally displaced women and children, were abducted in Borno State while reportedly searching for firewood, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

More than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped from a Chibok secondary school in 2014 by Boko Haram militants, sparking international outrage and a #BringBackOurGirls campaign.