Fifty Nigerian schoolchildren who were kidnapped last week during an attack on a Catholic school in Niger state have managed to flee captivity and return home, according to school officials.
Another 253 children and 12 teachers are still unaccounted for in what authorities describe as one of the largest mass abductions in the country’s recent history.
Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Niger state and proprietor of the school, said the escapees—aged 10 to 18—returned one by one between Friday and Saturday. He shared the update in a statement to the media on Sunday.
The students were taken during a violent raid at St. Mary’s School in the rural community of Papiri, where gunmen armed with heavy weapons overran the grounds and abducted both students and staff.
“We were able to ascertain this when we decided to contact and visit some parents,” Yohanna said, according to CBS News. “As much as we receive the return of these 50 children that escaped with some sigh of relief, I urge you all to continue in your prayers for the rescue and safe return of the remaining victims.”
Authorities have yet to identify where the remaining hostages are being held, and no militant group has claimed responsibility for the mass kidnapping.
Pope Leo XIV addressed the crisis during his Sunday mass in St. Peter’s Square, mourning the violence and urging the immediate and unconditional release of all abducted students and teachers.
The Niger state attack occurred just four days after a similar abduction in Maga, a town in neighboring Kebbi state, where 25 students were seized approximately 106 miles away.
These incidents are part of a growing wave of school kidnappings across northern Nigeria, where criminal and extremist groups increasingly use ransom-taking as a profitable tactic in regions where government control is limited.
Open Doors, a U.S.-based watchdog monitoring persecution globally, reports that more than 20,000 people were abducted in Nigeria between 2019 and 2023. The organization warns that “[k]idnapping is big business, funding Islamist expansion and tied to active terrorist groups.”
According to an October report, “Many of these bandits have been known to target anyone who will pay a price — but they have learned that Christians, and specifically religious leaders, can fetch a higher ransom,” making them “specifically vulnerable targets.”
Open Doors has long documented that more Christians are killed in Nigeria annually than in the rest of the world combined.
