Amnesty International has strongly criticized Nigerian authorities for failing to protect children in northern states after the abduction of more than 230 students in Kebbi and Niger this week. The human rights organization said the latest kidnappings show that schools remain unsafe and that the government has not taken effective steps to stop repeated attacks on students and teachers.
In a statement released by the Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, the group said the government’s inability to prevent these attacks is exposing children to “constant risk of death or abduction.” Sanusi added that the situation has now reached a level that threatens the future of education in many northern communities.
The recent abductions in Kebbi and Niger have renewed public outrage and fear. In Kebbi State, bandits stormed Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School in Manga, taking 25 female students. In Niger State, 215 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped from St Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in Papiri. The two attacks happened within days of each other, raising questions about the government’s strategy for protecting children.
According to Amnesty International, the latest kidnappings show that authorities “never cared to learn any lessons” from previous mass abductions. The group noted that more than 780 children were kidnapped in 2021 from schools and religious centers across northern Nigeria, with several of them killed during the attacks.
“These new abductions again demonstrate how the Nigerian authorities are struggling to prevent attacks on schools,” Sanusi said. “School children in some parts of northern Nigeria are constantly at risk.”
Amnesty International said the repeated kidnappings have forced hundreds of schools to shut down, leaving thousands of children out of classrooms. In states such as Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna and Plateau, many schools—especially those in rural areas—have remained closed for months or even years due to rising insecurity.
The organisation reported that teachers in Zamfara, Katsina and Niger have seen a sharp drop in attendance since 2021. Many children, especially girls, are now too afraid to return to school. Some families have permanently withdrawn their daughters from school, fearing they could be kidnapped and harmed by armed groups.
In many communities, parents prefer to keep their girls at home or marry them off early for what they believe is “safety,” further worsening the problem of early marriage in the region.
“The future of thousands of school children in northern Nigeria remains bleak,” Sanusi said. “Hundreds of children may entirely abandon education due to the psychological trauma of witnessing violent attacks or living in captivity.”
Nigeria has witnessed a series of shocking school abductions over the past decade. The most widely known is the 2014 kidnapping of over 270 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State, an event that drew global attention and sparked the #BringBackOurGirls movement. Since then, dozens of similar attacks have occurred in Dapchi, Kankara, Jangebe, Tegina and other communities.
In many cases, armed groups target schools because they are “soft targets” with weak security presence. The attackers often take large numbers of children at once, using them as hostages to demand ransom, recruit fighters or put pressure on authorities.
Despite repeated promises by the government to secure schools and rescue victims, the attacks have continued. Many families say they feel abandoned and unprotected.
Amnesty International warned that the scale and frequency of attacks on schools should now be treated as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. The organisation said Nigeria has a responsibility under international law to protect children and ensure that education remains safe.
“There is a deliberate attack on children by armed groups,” Sanusi said. “Using children as shields or bargaining chips is unacceptable and must stop.”
He added that the government must urgently take action to strengthen security around schools and bring all perpetrators to justice through fair trials.
The group also urged authorities to work closely with communities, security agencies and international partners to prevent further attacks and support victims. Many children who were kidnapped and later released still struggle with trauma, fear and difficulty returning to school.
The increasing number of attacks has also worsened Nigeria’s already troubling out-of-school population. According to UNICEF, Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of out-of-school children in the world, with most of them in the northern part of the country. Many of these children come from communities where schools have shut down or where parents are too afraid to send their children back.
Without urgent intervention, experts warn that the region risks a future where millions of children grow up without education, making them more vulnerable to crime, child labour and early marriage.
In his statement, Sanusi stressed that no child should ever have to choose between life and education. He said it is unacceptable that Nigerian children now face fear, violence and trauma simply because they want to learn.
“No child should go through what children are going through now in northern Nigeria,” he said. “Education should not be a matter of life and death for anyone. Nigeria is failing children once again in a horrifying manner.”
Amnesty International is calling on the government to urgently deploy more security personnel to vulnerable schools, improve intelligence gathering and ensure that communities report suspicious movements early.
As the country continues to grapple with repeated school abductions, many Nigerians hope that the latest tragedies in Kebbi and Niger will push authorities to finally take stronger, more coordinated action.
