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Gunmen have abducted more than 300 pupils and educators in what is considered the most significant collective seizures in recent Nigerian experience, as stated by a religious organization on Saturday.

Escalating Emergency in Educational Facilities

The early Friday raid on St Mary's mixed-gender school in Niger state occurred just days after gunmen attacked a high school in adjacent Kebbi state, taking 25 girls.

Initial reports had stated 227 victims were taken, but new numbers surfaced after a comprehensive verification exercise determined that 303 pupils and 12 instructors had been abducted.

The abducted students, aged between eight and 18 years, account for nearly half of the school's overall student population of 629.

Official Reaction and Security Actions

State officials have announced that intelligence departments and police are presently performing a comprehensive census to establish the exact number of abducted people.

In reaction to the growing safety fears, the local authorities has mandated the shutting of all schools in the region, with neighboring states following comparable preventive actions.

Furthermore, the national education department has ordered the temporary shutting of 47 boarding secondary schools throughout the country.

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

Latest Violent Events

The school abductions represent the most recent in a series of security breaches that have rocked the nation, including an assault on a place of worship in western Nigeria where gunmen shot dead two individuals and abducted dozens congregation members during a online broadcast service.

These events have taken place against the backdrop of international attention on Nigeria's safety situation.

Past Context

Nigeria remains traumatized by the memory of the large-scale abduction of almost 300 schoolgirls by extremist group Boko Haram in Chibok over a decade ago, with some of those victims still unaccounted for.

Firsthand Testimonies

In a concerning recording circulated by religious organizations, a upset employee recounted hearing the sounds of motorcycles and vehicles before hearing "forceful banging" on multiple gates of the school premises.

"Children were screaming," the staff member stated, describing her panic while searching for access to the section where the crying was loudest.

The local Catholic authority confirmed that the "attackers operated violently and uninterrupted for nearly three hours, searching dormitories."

Public Response and Concerns

At the same time, 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 healthcare worker, voiced her shock at the scale of the kidnapping, questioning how 300 students could be abducted at once.

She concluded that the "government is not doing enough to curb the security crisis," and expressed approval for international intervention to "salvage this situation."

Continuing Security Issues

For a long time, well-equipped bandit groups have been carrying out murders and kidnappings for money in rural areas of northwest and central Nigeria, where state presence is limited.

While nobody has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks, criminal groups demanding financial compensation often target schools in countryside locations where security is inadequate.

These groups maintain camps in vast forest areas straddling several states in the west of Nigeria.

Although these bandits have no ideological leanings and are primarily motivated by monetary profit, their growing cooperation with extremist groups from the north-east has become a major source of worry for officials and experts alike.