Officials report that over 280 Nigerian school pupils have been kidnapped in the north-western town of Kuriga. According to one witness, the abduction took place as the pupils gathered in the assembly area around 08:30 (07:30 GMT), with dozens of gunmen on motorcycles storming through the school premises.

The students, aged between eight and 15, were forcibly taken along with a teacher. Kidnap gangs, referred to as bandits, have been responsible for numerous abductions in the north-western region, with a recent decline in such incidents until this week's occurrence.

Typically, those abducted are released following the payment of ransom. Uba Sani, the governor of Kaduna state, which encompasses Kuriga, confirmed the mass abduction, stating that 187 students from a secondary school and 125 from a local primary school were missing, with 25 students having returned since.

An eyewitness reported that one girl was injured by gunfire and was receiving medical treatment at the Birnin Gwari hospital. A teacher who managed to escape recounted that locals attempted to rescue the children but were met with resistance from the gunmen, resulting in one fatality.

Zakariyya Nasiru, who had a brother and sister taken hostage, told the BBC the family was unable to sleep on Thursday night."All of us couldn't sleep as we kept thinking about them.

We are here praying for their safe return."Mr Nasiru said one boy had escaped last night and had brought back harrowing reports of their conditions, including a lack of food.

Almost every family in the town is thought to have a child among those kidnapped.

The armed forces have launched an operation to find them. "No child will be left behind," vowed the governor.

In January, bandits killed a school principal in the area and abducted his wife.

The kidnapping comes days after dozens of women and children were feared kidnapped by the Boko Haram Islamist group while they were collecting firewood in north-eastern Nigeria.

However, the two cases of mass abductions are not thought to be related.

The criminal kidnap gangs that bring fear to north-western Nigeria are separate from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeast, although there have been reports that they may have worked together on occasion.

Thursday's attack happened in an area controlled by Ansaru, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, which kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014.

In an attempt to curb Nigeria's spiraling and lucrative kidnapping industry, a controversial law that has made it a crime to make ransom payments was passed in 2022. It carries a jail sentence of at least 15 years, however, no one has ever been arrested.

Earlier this year, the family of a group of sisters kidnapped in the capital, Abuja, denied a police statement that the security forces had rescued the girls, saying that they had no choice but to pay the ransom.

Too bad