Boko Haram kidnaps students in Borno state school attack

A large group of students was abducted during a Boko Haram assault on a secondary school in Lassa, a town in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state. The attack occurred early in the morning as a biology examination was underway, with assailants storming the premises and seizing numerous pupils.

Borno state police spokesperson Nahum Kenneth Daso confirmed the incident, stating the attackers arrived on motorcycles and used the weekly market crowd in Lassa to blend in before striking. During the raid, one teacher was killed, and several students were forcibly taken by the armed men.

In response, Nigerian security forces launched a pursuit operation. Deputy commander of Operation Hadin Kai, Mohammed Musa Goni, reported that a soldier was killed in a clash with the assailants near the Daggu locality. He also announced that ten students had been freed during the operation, noting they are in good health and receiving medical and psychological support. Efforts are ongoing to locate the remaining hostages and apprehend those responsible for the attack.

Active in northeastern Nigeria since the early 2000s, Boko Haram has waged an armed insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 2009. The group has also extended its attacks into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, with violence across the Lake Chad basin killing at least 2,000 people and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, further destabilising the wider Sahel region.