MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – In the dusty confines of St. Mary’s school, the return of 50 children has done little to quiet the anguish. Their escape from armed kidnappers last Friday and Saturday has been met not with celebration, but with a more piercing dread for the 253 students and 12 staff still held captive.
The mass abduction, one of the worst in Nigeria’s history, has left this community suspended in a torturous limbo. While the Catholic Church and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) confirmed the escape, the news has only sharpened the focus on the massive scale of the crisis.
“Unfortunately, they were not among the escapees,” said Amose Ibrahim, a father whose three children—the youngest just six years old—are still missing. “As of now, many parents and their loved ones are roaming around the school,” he told Reuters, his voice a portrait of a vigil with no end in sight.
The kidnapping is the latest in a devastating pattern of school attacks in northern Nigeria, forcing states to shutter classrooms and upending the lives of thousands of children for whom education has become a lethal gamble.
A Global Plea and a Domestic Reckoning
The crisis has echoed from the remote Nigerian landscape to the highest levels of global spiritual and political power. From St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Leo made a “heartfelt appeal for the immediate release of the hostages.”
The incident has also intensified scrutiny of Nigeria’s security forces, prompting President Bola Tinubu to announce a drastic overhaul. In a meeting with security chiefs, he ordered the hiring of 30,000 new police officers and a controversial directive: the removal of all police officers from VIP protection duties to refocus on core security in vulnerable, remote areas.
This move signals a recognition that the nation’s security apparatus has been stretched thin, often prioritizing the safety of the elite over that of its children.
In a sliver of hope from a separate tragedy, President Tinubu confirmed that security forces on Sunday rescued 38 worshippers abducted during a service at Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara state, an attack that left at least two dead.
But for the parents circling St. Mary’s, each update from elsewhere is a reminder of their own unresolved nightmare. As the world moves on, they remain, waiting in the silence for the sound of their children coming home.
