50 Children Escape After Mass Kidnapping at Catholic School in Nigeria; 265 Still Missing

Fifty of the more than 300 children abducted by gunmen from St. Mary’s Co-Education School in Niger State have escaped their captors, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said on Sunday. The early-morning raid on Friday marked one of the largest mass kidnappings in the country’s recent history.

According to CAN, the children who escaped—aged between eight and 18—reunited with their families between Friday and Saturday. “We have received some good news as fifty pupils escaped and have reunited with their parents,” CAN’s Niger State chairman, Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, said in a statement. He urged the public to “continue in your prayers for the rescue and safe return of the remaining victims.”

Mass Abduction Sparks National Alarm

Gunmen stormed the school on November 21, abducting 303 children and 12 teachers, nearly half of the school’s entire student body of 629. The federal government has yet to release an official figure on the number of missing students and staff.

The attack came just days after another kidnapping in neighbouring Kebbi State, where 25 schoolgirls were taken from a secondary school. Authorities fear the surge in coordinated attacks signals an escalation by armed criminal gangs, who frequently target remote boarding schools for ransom.

Global Reactions and Growing Security Crisis

Pope Leo XIV expressed “deep sorrow” over the kidnappings during the Angelus prayer on Sunday, urging the immediate release of all hostages. “My heartfelt appeal is for the many young boys and girls kidnapped and for their anguished families,” he said.

In the United States, President Donald Trump sharply condemned the violence, calling the situation “a disgrace” and warning that military action could be considered if attacks on Christians by extremist groups continue. His comments follow a deadly attack on a church in western Nigeria this week, in which two people were killed and dozens abducted.

A Long-Running Pattern of Violence

Nigeria has faced a decade-long wave of school kidnappings, beginning with the 2014 abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok by Islamist militants. Despite intensified security efforts, mass kidnappings remain common—often carried out by criminal gangs operating in remote regions with minimal state presence.

Since 2019, insurgencies and armed violence in Nigeria’s northeast have killed more than 40,000 people and displaced approximately two million, according to humanitarian trackers.

As rescue operations continue, families of the abducted students wait anxiously for news, while calls for urgent national security reforms grow louder across Africa’s most populous nation.