“This is very regrettable. Terrorists are perpetrating a new wave of kidnappings and we cannot give in”, declared the national president of CAN, Joseph Hayab, to the Spanish news agency EFE.
The numbers represent almost half of the school’s total number of students (629 enrolled students).
Authorities in the neighboring states of Katsina and Plateau ordered the closure of all educational establishments as a precautionary measure.
The Niger State Government also closed numerous schools, and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu canceled his international commitments, including participation in the G20 summit in Johannesburg (South Africa), to manage the crisis.
The abduction of the St. Mary’s School students follows an armed attack carried out on Monday against a secondary school in the neighboring northwestern state of Kebbi, in which 25 young girls were kidnapped.
These two mass kidnappings and the attack on a church in the west of the country, which caused two deaths, occurred after US President Donald Trump threatened military intervention in Nigeria due to what he classified as massacres of Christians by radical Islamists.
Nigeria continues to be marked by the abduction of almost 300 young girls by Boko Haram jihadists in Chibok, in the state of Borno (northeast), more than ten years ago. Some remain missing.