By Staff, Agencies At least 275 pupils are missing after gunmen attacked a school in northwestern Nigeria in the second mass abduction within a week in the country. Local government officials in Kaduna state confirmed the kidnappings from Kuriga school on Thursday, but didn’t provide figures as were working out how many children had been abducted.

According to school authorities the state governor that about 25 of the abducted students had been returned to their parents, but 275 remained missing.

A search and rescue team had been deployed to try and rescue the children.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in Africa’s most populous country, where heavily armed criminal gangs have targeted schools and colleges in the past, especially in the northwest, although such attacks have abated recently.

Idris Maiallura, the local councillor for Kuriga, said he had been to the school and that the gunmen initially took 100 primary school pupils but later freed them while others escaped.

Parents and residents blamed the abductions on a lack of security in the area.

Amnesty International called on the authorities to safely rescue the students and hold the perpetrators to account.

“Schools should be places of safety, and no child should have to choose between their education and their life,” the rights group said on X, as it called on the authorities to also “take measures immediately to prevent attacks on schools, to protect children’s lives and their right to education”.