Attackers abduct 42 people from Nigerian school

Around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed the Government Science Secondary School in central Nigeria. They shot and killed one student and took 42 captives, including 27 students, three staffers, and 12 family members, Gov. Abubakar Sani Bello said. Bello shut down all boarding schools in the state following the incident. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari dispatched a team of security chiefs to support the response.

Who is behind the attack? No group has claimed responsibility. Armed bandits and insurgents have staged abductions and targeted schools across central and northern Nigeria in recent years. Some 100 girls remain missing after Boko Haram extremists kidnapped more than 270 students from a boarding school in 2014. In February 2018, insurgents from the Islamic State West Africa Province terror group abducted 110 schoolgirls, including Christian Leah Sharibu, from their school in Dapchi, Nigeria. In December, some 344 schoolboys went free a few days after armed men took them from their school.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archive, read my 2018 report on the Dapchi kidnapping.