Gunmen abduct 37 students and staff from Nigeria school exam hall

At least 37 people were still in captivity after gunmen stormed Government Day Secondary School in Lassa, Borno state, and took students who were sitting National Examinations Council exams, according to Borno Commissioner for Education Lawan Abba Wakilbe. The captives included 25 female students, 11 male students and one staff member, while eight people, including the vice principal, were rescued.

The attack hit on Monday morning in Askira/Uba Local Government Area, around 9 a.m. as candidates were writing their exams. That timing turned an ordinary school day into a mass abduction and once again showed how exposed students remain in parts of northeast Nigeria where armed groups still move through roads, villages and public institutions with alarming ease.

Wakilbe’s figures left families counting the missing one by one as rescue teams searched for the rest. Local hunters and security forces, including troops linked to Operation Hadin Kai, joined efforts to recover those taken. The Borno State Government also opened a register for affected families so relatives could list the names of students and staff still unaccounted for.

Amnesty International condemned the abduction and called on the Nigerian government to take urgent, concrete steps to secure schools and protect children from armed attacks. The appeal reflected the scale of the failure in Borno state, where school kidnappings have become a recurring feature of civilian life rather than a one-off emergency.

The attack also sharpened concern over the state’s ability to protect basic public functions, especially examination periods that should be among the most routine moments in a school’s calendar. When armed men can enter a school hall, seize students during a national exam and slip away with dozens of captives, the weakness is not only in the perimeter fence or the armed response. It is in the wider security system meant to keep children safe in the first place.

For parents in Lassa, the immediate fear was for the 37 still missing. For officials in Borno, the deeper test is whether repeated promises to secure schools can produce anything more durable than rescue operations after the damage is already done.