Nigeria sees 25 school girls snatched and staff member shot in horror mass kidnap

Armed attackers have forced their way into a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria, kidnapping 25 schoolgirls and shooting one staff member, police have said. The mass kidnapping is said to have taken place at a girls’ secondary school in Nigeria’s Kebbi state on Monday. Police on Monday said a gang armed with "sophisticated weapons, shooting sporadically, stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School" at about 4.00am local time. Police were called to the school but “unfortunately, the suspected bandits had already scaled through the fence of the school and abducted twenty-five students from their hostel to unknown destination”, they said in a statement. The school deputy head was shot dead and a security guard was injured during the attack, according to a report for the UN. The military, police tactical units and local vigilantes have “been deployed in the area and they are currently combing the bandits’ routes and nearby forest” in a bid to find the girls and arrest the gangs, police said. It comes four years after armed attackers abducted more than 100 students and staff members from a government college in the same state in June 2021. The students were released over two years after parents raised ransom. Some were forcefully married off and others returned with babies. This is a breaking news story. Follow us on Google News , Flipboard , Apple News , Twitter , Facebook or visit The Mirror homepage.