Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged the immediate release of more than 300 people seized from a Catholic school in one of Nigeria’s largest mass kidnappings.
He said he received “with immense sadness” the news that priests, worshippers, and students had been kidnapped in Nigeria and Cameroon.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) had earlier announced that over 300 students and teachers were taken in separate attacks on two schools.
Leo appealed for “the immediate release of the hostages,” expressing “deep sorrow, especially for the many young boys and girls kidnapped and for their anguished families”.
He called on the faithful to pray “for these brothers and sisters of ours and that churches and schools may always and everywhere remain places of safety and hope,” delivering the message at the end of the Angelus prayer.
The wave of abductions began on Monday when armed men invaded a secondary school in Kebbi State and abducted 25 girls. This was followed by an attack in the early hours of Friday at St Mary’s co-education school in Niger State.
Both incidents, alongside an assault on a church in western Nigeria where two people were killed and many others were abducted, occurred as US President Donald Trump issued a warning of possible military action over what he described as the persecution of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.
Nigeria continues to grapple with the legacy of the Chibok abductions, where nearly 300 schoolgirls were taken by Boko Haram in Borno State more than ten years ago. A number of those victims remain unaccounted for.
