St. Mary Catholic School in Agwara Local Government Area of Niger State, northern Nigeria, was plunged into horror in the early hours of Friday, November 21st, when armed bandits stormed the compound and kidnapped more than 300 pupils and 12 staff members, leaving the community in anguish and panic.
Mrs. Martha Mathias, a classroom teacher whose husband was among the abductees, described the terrifying ordeal as chaos erupted at about 1 a.m. “My name is Mrs Martha Mathias, I work at St. Mary Catholic School as a classroom teacher. And I teach primary sections. It was around 1 a.m. on Friday when we were sleeping at night, and I heard children crying, ‘Please help me. Please help us. Please, where are the teachers? Please come and help us,’” she said.
She said she attempted to leave her room to assist the children, but her husband intervened, warning, ‘Lie down, lie down; they are bandits. Don’t go out.’ I went back. So they continued shouting. I wanted to come out again. He said, ‘Please, don’t go,’” Mrs. Mathias recalled.
The attackers, arriving in three cars and several motorcycles, unleashed panic among pupils and staff, also seizing cash stored by the teachers from their recent salary payments.
As the bandits herded the pupils together, they inquired about the presence of parents and teachers. “When they gathered all the children, they now asked them, ‘Where are your parents?’ They said, ‘We don’t have parents here. They are at home.’ They said, ‘Okay, where are the teachers?’ They said, ‘Our teachers are here. See their rooms.’
“The bandits began with Mrs. Mathias’ colleague Metron before approaching the Mathias’ quarters. “They went to her room. When she came out. They now come to our room. They asked my husband to come out. When he came out, they asked him to lie down. They now tied his hand behind his back. They now carried him and left with him,” she recounted.
Mrs. Mathias was granted permission to check on her infant, only to find her room ransacked. The terror escalated as her daughter attempted to stay with her parents. “So my daughter now started shouting that she would follow us, she would follow Daddy and Mummy. She now came out, she started running, she came to me. So they now said, go back, go back. She said, I’m not going. They said, go back. They now put a gun on her forehead, saying that if she did not stop crying or go back to the room, they would kill her. She said, I’m not going, I must follow Mummy. One of them now said, let’s leave this woman, let her go back. That was when they left us,” Mrs Mathias recounted.Security forces—including police, military units, and local authorities—were quickly mobilised for search and rescue operations. Initial reports confirmed that about 303 pupils and 12 staff members were taken, though the numbers remain under review as families anxiously await news.
A subsequent development brought some relief when 50 of the abducted pupils escaped to safety and returned to their families, but the majority of children and teachers remain in captivity. According to the local Catholic diocese and public officials, the school had recently reopened, disregarding government warnings about the heightened risk of attacks in the region.
As Niger State reels from yet another brutal mass kidnapping, communities, authorities, and families cling to hope for a full rescue and call for urgent action to protect schools and vulnerable populations across northern Nigeria.
