At least 42 Nigerian schoolchildren remain missing following a Friday raid by suspected Islamist militants on an educational facility in the conflict-ridden northeastern state of Borno, according to a regional lawmaker.
Local residents reported that heavily armed men stormed the Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in the Askira-Uba Local Government Area while classes were actively underway, taking an unconfirmed number of hostages. Senator Ali Ndume, who represents the Borno South district, released a statement confirming that school administrators notified him that 32 students were seized directly from the campus, while an additional 10 children were taken from nearby residential homes.
Borno State—a vast territory comparable in size to Ireland that shares international borders with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon—has served as the heart of a brutal insurgency led by the Boko Haram Islamist extremist group for over 15 years.
While no militant faction has officially claimed credit for Friday’s raid, the operation closely mirrors historical mass kidnappings executed by Boko Haram. Notably, Borno South is the same senatorial district where the group abducted over 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014, sparking intense global condemnation. The state had managed to avoid further school-targeted abductions until this latest incident. In recent years, major school kidnappings have primarily shifted to Nigeria’s northwestern region, where heavily armed criminal syndicates orchestrate mass captures strictly for financial ransom.
In a separate security development, U.S. President and President Bola Tinubu jointly announced that a coordinated U.S.-Nigerian military operation successfully neutralized Abu-Bilal al-Minuki in Borno early Saturday morning. Al-Minuki was identified as the global second-in-command of ISIS.
3 suspects apprehended following twin school assaults in southwestern Nigeria
Nigerian authorities confirmed Saturday that three armed men have been taken into custody following an unusual assault on two primary schools located in the country’s southwestern region.
Law enforcement officials are still actively working to determine exactly how many children may have been taken during the incident, according to police spokesperson Ayanlade Olayinka in a statement to The Associated Press.
The coordinated attacks targeted two separate primary educational facilities in the Oriire district of Oyo State, situated roughly 220 kilometers from the commercial hub of Lagos, during the early morning hours on Friday. Olayinka noted that local community members successfully identified the suspects, leading directly to their subsequent arrest by police. Officials declined to clarify whether security forces are currently pursuing additional accomplices.
Educational raids of this nature typically occur in Nigeria’s northern territory, where the majority of active insurgent factions operate. This particular incident took place just hours apart from a separate, severe assault in northeastern Borno State on Friday, where suspected jihadist fighters targeted a local secondary school.
The mass abduction of students remains a persistent crisis in Nigeria, where federal forces are simultaneously combating various armed syndicates across multiple regions. Security analysts point out that militant organizations, including the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, intentionally target educational institutions for high-value ransoms because these high-profile crimes successfully force immediate government intervention.
Just last year, the West African nation was destabilized by two massive school abductions, which resulted in more than 300 children being taken captive across the conflict-heavy northern states.
