They Came at Dusk: A Community on Edge After One of Nigeria’s Largest School Kidnappings
The sun had just dipped behind the low Niger State hills when the first frightened parents began to arrive at St Mary’s co-educational school. Some were drawn by the siren of rumours; others by the small tribe of ambulances and policemen. A woman in a faded wrapper clutched a thermos of hot tea as if it would steady her hands: “I knew something was wrong when my son didn’t come to fetch water after prayers,” she told me, voice tight with fatigue. “We have been waiting since Friday.”
In the days that followed, the slow, wrenching rhythms of reunion and despair played out in public. Fifty children — a small, miraculous number when set against the scale of the crime — slipped back into the arms of parents and neighbours after daring escapes, according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Their stories are vivid: flashlights in the bush, a broken strap, a chance to run. “They came in the night, like thieves in the harmattan,” one liberated boy said, rubbing his eyes. “We were scared, but we ran.”
What Happened at St Mary’s
Gunmen attacked St Mary’s school in Niger State on a Friday evening, seizing hundreds of children in one of the nation’s largest mass kidnappings in recent memory. CAN reported that 303 pupils and 12 teachers were taken. The school, which has a total enrolment of about 629 students, lost nearly half its children in a single, brutal operation. Children taken ranged in age from about eight to 18.
This raid did not come in isolation. Earlier the same week, armed men stormed a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi State and abducted 25 girls. Across the country, these episodes have triggered panic and a cascade of school closures: the national education ministry ordered 47 boarding secondary schools to shut their dormitories while authorities reassess security measures.
Numbers That Refuse to Be Ignored
- 303 pupils and 12 teachers reported abducted from St Mary’s.
- 50 students have escaped and returned home, according to CAN.
- 47 boarding secondary schools were ordered closed nationwide by the education ministry.
- Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, with roughly 216 million people, and the social ripple effects of such attacks extend far beyond any single village.
Voices From the Ground
“There is no night that feels safe anymore,” said Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, CAN chairman in Niger State, his hands laced on the makeshift stage where grieving families gathered. “We rejoice for the children who have returned, but our prayers are for the rest. We need swift action to bring them back.”
A local schoolteacher, who asked to be identified only as Mariam, described the fear that now hangs over classrooms. “Parents are calling to take their children home even though we try to reassure them. How do you explain that the place meant to teach them maths and English has turned into a target?”
Security analysts say this pattern of abductions is both strategic and opportunistic. “Kidnappings of students have become a revenue model for organised criminal gangs,” explained Dr Amina Bello, a security specialist at a leading Abuja think tank. “They’re also a means to humiliate the state — to point to the failures of protection. The combination is devastating: economic motives overlaid with the broader insecurity that plagues many rural communities.”
History of Trauma: Chibok and a Nation’s Memory
For many Nigerians, the wounds reopen the moment the headlines flash. Memory goes back to April 2014, when nearly 276 girls from Chibok were taken by Boko Haram in one of the world’s most notorious kidnappings. Years later, some remain missing; some freed girls continue to live with trauma and social stigma.
These historical echoes make each new abduction feel less like an isolated crime and more like part of a relentless story. “We have to remember that these are not just statistics,” a local imam said quietly, as he handed out bottled water to distraught families. “Every child is someone’s whole world.”
Why Schools Are Targets
There are multiple, overlapping reasons: poverty in rural areas, armed groups operating with impunity, and the absence of rapid, effective security responses. Kidnapping students is a high-profile way for criminals to secure ransom payments and media attention, and it exploits gaps in protective infrastructure — from underfunded local police posts to long stretches of unlit roads where patrols are rare.
“Schools are both soft targets and lucrative ones,” Dr Bello said. “The criminals calculate that communities will pay to get their children back. That makes it a persistent model unless you address both security and socio-economic drivers.”
The Human Cost: Beyond Fear
The immediate horror is obvious: children snatched, teachers taken, families shattered. But the longer grief is quieter and more insidious. When boarding schools close, children lose days, months, even years of education. Parents, already stretched thinly by rising prices and uncertain incomes, must decide whether to risk sending their children back. The dropout rates among older boys and girls climb. Futures are re-rolled like dice.
“My daughter dreams of becoming a doctor,” said Fatima, a mother in the nearby town, her hands stained from preparing cassava. “Now she’s scared to go back to class. Who will step in and promise safety and hope?”
What Comes Next?
Authorities say they are investigating and have vowed to pursue the perpetrators, but parents and civil society are pressing for more concrete measures — better intelligence, regional coordination between state and federal forces, community early-warning systems, and a faster humanitarian response to support traumatised children.
International voices have also joined local ones. Religious leaders have appealed for restraint and rescue; citizens abroad have held vigils and shared petitions. Yet the most immediate pressure rests on the families and neighbours who wake early each day to head back to uncertain fields and quiet classrooms.
Actions People Want to See
- Increased, community-integrated security patrols around schools.
- Investment in protective infrastructure — lighting, perimeter fencing, emergency communications.
- Trauma counselling and emergency education programs for affected children.
- Transparent investigations and accountability to deter future attacks.
Where Do We Turn From Here?
For the parents hugging their freed children, the future is cramped with immediate needs: food, health checks, paperwork for school re-enrolment, and a search for the rest. For those whose loved ones remain missing, every sunset is another tightening wound.
And for readers far from Niger State, there’s an uncomfortable question: how do we bear witness without turning pain into spectacle? How do we demand, across borders and languages, that the places meant to be safe — churches, schools, classrooms — are guaranteed that safety?
Perhaps the clearest demand is simple: protect children. Not as ideology, but as an urgent, practical imperative. When a school becomes a battlefield, the toll is not only the children taken; it is the future deferred for an entire community. The task now is to restore not just those children to their homes, but trust to the places that raise a society.
As one mother said, wiping a tear that refused to fall, “Bring our children back, and then teach us how to sleep at night.”
