Gunmen kill vice principal, abduct female students in attack on Nigerian school

Police deploy troops and vigilantes to comb escape routes and nearby forests

Quareebullahi Ajenifuja, 12, and Joy Adeniji, 12, take notes together during class at Ilorin Grammar school, in Ilorin, Kwara state, Nigeria, Mar 26, 2021. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaj

Gunmen attacked a government girls' boarding school in Nigeria's Kebbi State early on Monday, killing the vice principal and abducting 25 female students, police said, in the latest mass kidnapping in the country's northwest.

The assailants, armed with rifles and reportedly using coordinated tactics, stormed Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga town around 4 a.m. local time, engaging police in a gunfight before scaling the perimeter fence and seizing the students, police spokesperson Nafiu Abubakar Kotarkoshi said.

Vice Principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku was shot dead while resisting the attackers, and another staff member sustained gunshot injuries, he added.

Police said additional tactical units, soldiers and local vigilantes have been deployed to comb suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a search-and-rescue operation.

Northwest Nigeria has witnessed repeated school abductions by armed gangs seeking ransom, despite government pledges to improve security in the region. Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 270 schoolgirls in 2014 in the northeastern town of Chibok. While many of the girls managed to escape or were later released, some have never been returned.