The mass abduction of schoolchildren in Nigeria in November 2025
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
In November 2025 gunmen carried out two mass abductions of students in northern Nigeria, seizing 25 girls from a school dormitory in the northwest and then more than 300 students from a Catholic school in north-central Niger State.[1][2][3]Fifty of the Catholic school students escaped, and in December the government said all of the remaining pupils had been released.[4][5]
Follow this story to see new developments when you return.
Fifty of the Catholic school students escaped, and in December the government said all of the remaining pupils had been released.[4][5]
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · weekly (UTC)
23%0%
Nov 20252026this week
LeftCenterRightLighter bar: this week so far
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings. We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 4 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (6 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
Week of (UTC)
Left
Center
Right
Of tracked
Share
Receipts
Dec 22, 2025
0
9
0
9 of 139
6%
Dec 15, 2025
0
1
0
1 of 187
1%
Dec 8, 2025
1
3
2
6 of 184
3%
Dec 1, 2025
1
0
1
2 of 177
1%
Nov 24, 2025
6
12
5
23 of 153
15%
Nov 17, 2025
9
26
8
43 of 189
23%
Latest coverage
The newest reporting in this story's record.
Dec 20, 2025 · first reported · Headline from ABC 17 Mid-Missouri
One girl taken in the first abduction escaped within days, as hunters joined security forces in the search.[1] Days later armed bandits invaded the private Catholic school in Niger State,[2] and 50 students who escaped returned home.[4] Local media reported in early December that about 100 had been freed,[3] and later that month a spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu announced that all the pupils had been released.[5]
