ABUJA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of students and teachers who were abducted after suspected terrorists attacked a school in Nigeria's central state of Niger on Friday has risen from 227 to 315, said the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Saturday.
In a statement, Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the CAN in Niger State, provided an update on the incident and the number of victims, saying that the organization carried out a verification exercise and made further inquiries with parents whose children were thought to have escaped during the attack.
"We became curious, and that was when we did the census and discovered that they (the missing school children) were abducted," Yohanna said, noting that the suspected terrorists took 88 more students away, bringing the total number of abducted persons to 315.
The students, aged 12 to 17, were abducted from their dormitory when gunmen invaded the premises of St. Mary's School early Friday. The school has a population of 629 students, Yohanna said.
Abubakar Usman, secretary to the Niger state government, had confirmed the incident without giving an exact number of victims, noting that the incident had occurred despite earlier intelligence reports indicating heightened security threats in parts of the state.
He further said that the government, based on the alerts, had ordered the suspension of all construction activities and the temporary closure of all boarding schools in the affected zone. However, St. Mary's School had reopened and resumed academic activities without notifying or seeking clearance from authorities, "thereby exposing pupils and staff to danger."
Local security agencies had launched a full-scale investigation and search-and-rescue operations to ensure the safe return of the pupils.
Wasiu Abiodun, spokesperson for the Niger state police, told Xinhua by telephone that tactical units of the paramilitary agency, along with military components and other security agencies, had been deployed to the scene, combing nearby forests in an effort to rescue the abducted students.
The attack in Niger is the second such incident this week in the West African country, following the kidnapping of at least 25 schoolgirls from a government-run secondary school in the northern state of Kebbi on Monday. ■