At least 37 students missing after school kidnapping in Northeastern Nigeria

Thirty-seven students were missing after jihadists raided their school where they were writing final exams on Monday, according to a list shared by a Nigerian local government official on Tuesday.

The attack occurred Monday morning when assailants from Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed a secondary school in the town of Lassa, in Askira Uba district, killing three people including a soldier and a teacher, according to the military, who initially said authorities had rescued 10 of them and that only one was missing.

The “list of students in captivity”, showing the students’ gender and their parents mobile phone number was shared to journalists by area’s local government councillor, Ijagla Ijabila.

An intel source also showed AFP the same list. Kidnapping for ransom, especially of students, has become a common tactic for both jihadists and non-ideological “bandit” gangs across the conflict-hit north and centre of the country.

While the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls from the town of Chibok by Boko Haram jihadists remains Nigeria’s most infamous, school abductions continue to rock the country. In May, jihadists kidnapped more than 40 pupils from Borno state’s Mussa village. They are still in captivity.

That same month, suspected jihadists rounded up dozens of schoolchildren from three schools in Oyo state — a rare attack in southwest Nigeria, considered to be the safest region in the country. Nigeria has been fighting a jihadist insurgency since 2009, concentrated in the northeast.

While violence has waned since the peak of the conflict a decade ago, analysts have warned of an uptick in attacks since 2025.