At dawn on Friday, the tranquility in the Agwara region (Nigeria) was brutally interrupted when a commando armed men attacked the eSt. Mary’s Catholic School.
In a matter of minutes, at least 315 personas (303 students and 12 teachers) were forcibly transferred, in the largest mass kidnapping of schoolchildren perpetrated in the country since March 2024.
It is about the latest in a series of school attacks that occurred this week that has forced the Government to close 47 schools.
According to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the high number of victims is reminiscent of the infamous Chibok massacre.
Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, president of CAN in Nigeria, ensures that some students managed to escape in the chaos that followed.
The police confirmed the attack, although they refrained from offering conclusive data on the exact number of kidnapped people, and reported that Security agencies were at the scene of Friday’s attack on the Catholic school, searching the nearby forests to try to rescue the kidnapped people.
Local authorities stated that the school St. Mary’s had ignored closure warnings formulated by Intelligence due to the probability of new attacks, exposing students and staff to an avoidable tragedy.
The situation in Nigeria
The context could not be more disturbing: last Monday, November 17, 25 students were kidnapped in the neighboring state of Kebbi and, days later, a assault on a church in Kwara ended with dozens of captive parishioners and, at least, two dead.
The Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, faced with the wave of attacks, canceled imminently your international agenda to respond to this new security crisis that hits the nation.
I am heartbroken by the abduction of our daughters in Kebbi and the painful loss of Brigadier General Musa Uba and the brave soldiers who fell in Borno. Their families, and the families of the kidnapped schoolgirls, are in my prayers.
As the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed…
— Bola Ahmed Tinubu (@officialABAT) November 19, 2025
Meanwhile, entire families wait for news, in suspense, given the growing list of victims and the ransom demand by the captors, which amounts to about $69,000 for each hostage.
As a backdrop—and aggravating the diplomatic tension—the statements of the American president Donald Trump They warn of “rapid” military intervention if Nigeria does not end persecution against Christians.
A position that the Nigerian Government describes as distorted and that places the international focus on a nation trapped between foreign pressure, the jihadist threat and the wave of armed crime.
Nigeria, shaken by decades of sectarian violence and terrorismthus reliving the nightmare of mass kidnappings, with schools closed and entire communities plunged into fear and uncertainty.
hot spots
Much of northern Nigeria, which includes more than 20 of the country’s 36 states, faces a security crisis that disrupts every aspect of daily life, from commuting to agricultural production.
In it northwestarmed bands lacking recognizable religious or political motivations have dedicated themselves to kidnapping to demand ransoms and hide in the extensive forests, taking advantage of remote regions without a real government presence, where many attacks are not even officially recorded.
The situation worsens in the northeastwhere the insurgency of radical Islamist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) has caused the country’s largest humanitarian emergency: more than two million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have lost their lives in the last fifteen years.
The violence has escalated to the point that ISWAP has captured and executed senior military commanders, as happened with a general on November 14.
In it center In Nigeria—a key region for agriculture and where Muslim communities from the north and Christian communities from the south coexist—daily coexistence is marked by bloody clashes originating from religious and ethnic reasons and the dispute over natural resources such as land and water.
Nigeria, thus, faces a multiplicity of challenges: the advance of gangs that make a living from kidnapping, the persistence of jihadist militancy and inter-community clashes, all of them undermining the stability, social fabric and economic future of the country.