The attack and abductions took place at St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in the Agwara local government’s Papiri community. Attackers seized 215 pupils and students as well as 12 teachers, said Daniel Atori, a spokesperson for the Niger state chapter of CAN.

“I just got back to the village tonight after I visited the school where I also met with parents,” Atori said in a statement, quoting the Most Rev. Bulus Dauwa, the CAN chairman in Niger. The statement added that the association is working “to ensure our children’s safe return.”

The Niger State Police Command said the abductions took place in the early hours, and that military and security forces have since been deployed to the community. It described St. Mary’s as a secondary school, which in Nigeria would serve children between the ages of 12 and 17.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for abducting the girls from the boarding school in Kebbi state and their motivation was unclear.

Nigeria is facing a multidimensional security challenge, specifically from amorphous groups of armed bandits who specialize in kidnapping for ransoms — sometimes totaling thousands of dollars — and have been responsible for several high-profile abductions across Nigeria’s northern region. Kidnappings, attacks on villages and along major roads have become common because of the limited security presence.

Those bandits are not connected to militant groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province, whose attacks on communities and government installations are motivated by religion.

Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu, speaking to troops in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northeast Nigeria, emphasized that the new push must succeed. Failure was “not an option” as the military enters a critical phase of the decade-long conflict, he said.

“You have been training to defeat the terrorists… This time, you are going to do it differently,” Shaibu told the assembled troops. “All combat enablers have been provided. New platforms have been introduced, all to ensure that you succeed.”

On Nov. 1, Trump threatened to end all aid and assistance to Nigeria and “wipe out the Islamic Terrorists” in the country.

Parents who gathered at the school said two girls had managed to escape their abductors on Monday evening.

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Police said men armed with rifles stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga around 4 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Monday, arriving on motorcycles in an apparently well-planned attack.

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The attackers exchanged gunfire with police before scaling the perimeter fence and abducting the students.

Most of the students and those kidnapped are Muslim, the dominant religion in the region, school officials said.

The gunmen forced their way into the school premises in the Sokoto village of Gidan Bakuso and started firing shots sporadically, waking and causing panic among the students, who ran for cover, said school owner Liman Abubakar Bakuso.

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“They succeeded in abducting 15 of my students, the oldest being 20 and 15, but all the others are below 13,” said Bakuso by phone, adding that a woman had also been kidnapped.

“We are in a state of panic and have been praying hard for their safe release,” he told Reuters.

Police did not respond to requests for comment.

The attack on the Bethel Baptist High School is the 10th mass school kidnapping since December in northwest Nigeria, which authorities have attributed to armed bandits seeking ransom payments.

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Dozens of distraught parents gathered at the school compound, some weeping and crying out, standing in groups awaiting news. Discarded sandals lay strewn nearby. Dormitories containing metal bunk beds and cupboards were deserted.

“May God take away their tears and the suffering that they will face in the hands of the kidnappers,” said a woman pointing at a hole in the school’s perimeter where the attackers entered.

His voice breaking, parent John Evans said he had recently told his daughter that God would protect her while she studied at the school.

“Just this morning at about 6, I received a phone call that they have entered the school…kidnappers, that all our children are packed (taken), including my daughter,” he said. “We rushed down here, we confirmed that they are all packed.”

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Police said gunmen shooting wildly attacked overnight and overpowered the school’s security guards, taking an unspecified number of students into a nearby forest. A police statement said 26 people including a female teacher had been rescued.

The attack is the third mass kidnapping in three weeks in northwest Nigeria, which have authorities have attributed to armed bandits seeking ransom payments.

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Usman Aliyu, a teacher at the school, said the gunmen took more than 80 students, most of them girls.

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“They killed one of the (police officers), broke through the gate and went straight to the students’ classes,” he told Reuters.

Kebbi State police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar, said the gunmen killed one officer during an exchange and also shot a student, who was receiving medical treatment.

Police late on Thursday had not released the number of students missing, and a spokesman for the Kebbi state governor said they were conducting a tally of the missing.

The attack took place at a federal government college in the remote town of Birnin Yauri. Abubakar said