Gunmen kidnap dozens of students in Nigeria’s Borno State

Gunmen have ⁠kidnapped dozens of school pupils in Nigeria’s rebellion-ravaged northeastern state of Borno, residents ⁠told the Reuters and AFP news agencies.

The suspected fighters stormed Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba Local Government Area at about 9 am (08:00 GMT) on Friday while classes were in session and ⁠took several students with them, Ubaidallah Hasaan, who lives near the school, told Reuters.

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A teacher at the school told Reuters that armed attackers had arrived on motorcycles. “Despite some students escaping to the bushes, I can tell you many were taken away,” the teacher ‌said.

No group claimed responsibility for the raid, which bore the hallmark of the Boko Haram group. Local lawmaker Midala Usman Balami called the attack “heartbreaking” and urged authorities to act swiftly.

Africa’s most populous country is battling a 17-year armed rebellion from such groups, who have made abductions a key tactic – including the infamous 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok.

Mass kidnappings have become a common way for gangs and armed groups to make quick money in Africa’s most populous country, especially in rural areas with little government presence.

A few weeks ago, gunmen raided an orphanage and kidnapped at least 23 children from an “isolated area” in Nigeria’s Kogi State capital, Lokoja, Kogi Information Commissioner Kingsley Fanwo said in a statement.

Borno ⁠and neighbouring states have seen repeated attacks on schools and communities despite ongoing military operations, raising concerns about ⁠security gaps in rural areas.

The community of Mussa lies near ⁠the Sambisa Forest, a longstanding stronghold ⁠of rebel fighters who have waged a campaign of violence in northeast Nigeria for more than a decade.

In a separate incident ‌on Friday, gunmen abducted students at Baptist Nursery and Primary School in the southwestern state of Oyo. The state has ordered school closures in the ‌area ‌while police launched a manhunt for the abductors.

Though violence has waned from the peak of Nigeria’s rebellions, kicked off by Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising, analysts have warned of a potential increase in attacks since 2025, especially in rural areas outside, or barely under, government control.

Gimba Kakanda, a Nigerian writer and public servant, told Al Jazeera that the expansion of territory in which these groups operate “matters because insurgencies are sustained not by ideology alone, but by terrain, supply routes, local economies, and the ability to move men and materiel through spaces where the state is weak or absent”.

“Violence in northern Nigeria is sustained by a combination of doctrinal extremism, chronic poverty, educational exclusion, and a state whose presence is often too limited to command confidence in the communities where armed groups seek recruits,” Kakanda said.