Nigeria is facing another mass child abduction in the north of the country as part of an attack on a Catholic school that occurred on Friday.
More than 300 children and 12 teachers are being held hostage.
The alarming incident took place just days after 25 students were kidnapped in a neighboring state, continuing a pattern of abductions that has plagued northern Nigeria for years.
While other conflicts around the world have captured international attention, the situation in Nigeria has not.
The Western world generally does not care about what happens in Africa
“The Western world generally does not care about what happens in Africa,” Uriel Palti, a former Israeli ambassador to Nigeria, told The Media Line. “You rarely hear about Africa in the news, and for the US and Russia, Africa is very low on their list of priorities.”
Last week, Pope Leo XIV warned of the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nigeria, saying that not only Christians were in danger.
The international community has voiced growing concern about the violence, yet the crisis has not dominated headlines or the agendas of leading organizations. US President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” earlier this month. He also warned that the US military is preparing for potential action, framing the violence as a “mass slaughter” of Christians by “radical Islamists,” and threatened to cut off all aid and even deploy military force if Nigeria does not act. The African Union pushed back on President Trump, saying there was no genocide in Nigeria and pointing out that both Christians and Muslims are victims of violence.
Most of the victims, even of attacks carried out by Islamist groups, are Muslims
“The attempt by Trump and others to present the issue as something simplistic is wrong,” Dr. Irit Back, from the Middle East and African Studies program at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line. “Most of the victims, even of attacks carried out by Islamist groups, are Muslims.”
“Nigeria is riddled with inter-religious conflict, but also intra-religious and ethnic strife,” Back said, adding that kidnappings are “a part of the informal economy” in Nigeria.
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Payment of ransom has been forbidden in the country, but this has had little effect, as parents are often willing to pay to get their children back.
“There are huge class gaps and severe poverty, coupled with extensive government corruption,” she explained.
Back said these complexities directly affect the relatively low international interest in the ongoing violence in Nigeria.
“It is much easier to identify the rivals in the Israeli-Arab conflict,” she said. “On social media, Nigeria’s problems aren’t ‘sexy’ and too complicated to explain.”
Last week, American rapper Nicki Minaj condemned “the targeting, displacement, and killing of Christians in Nigeria” during a speech at the UN, in an effort to draw attention to the crisis.
Violence in the country is also fueled by resource competition, land disputes, and herder-farmer tensions, which are not always religiously motivated.
Nigeria is a resource-rich country. It has one of the world’s largest crude oil and natural gas reserves, in addition to substantial deposits of minerals such as gold and coal. It also has an extensive network of rivers. All of these factors shape the different conflicts troubling the country.
Dr. Y. Sella, an independent researcher who has focused on Islam in Africa and sees radical Islam as the root of many of the attacks, points to how the al-Qaida attacks on the US in 2001 changed perspectives in Western media.
“First there was great shock, but gradually an acceptance of the motives behind the attack began,” Sella told The Media Line, who believes this is why international outrage over the attacks in Nigeria is not heard loudly.
Nigeria has had long-standing religious tensions that are deeply connected to its geography, politics, and socioeconomic divides. Muslims and Christians each make up roughly half of the population, and the country is broadly split between the predominantly Muslim north and largely Christian south, a reality that has shaped both its history and its conflicts. Terrorist groups such as Boko Haram have carried out brutal attacks targeting civilians of different faiths.
For more than a decade, the Boko Haram terrorist group has operated in the region, attempting to impose an Islamic state. The organization has targeted schools as part of its rejection of Western values and literacy.
Members of the group are affiliated with the global Islamic State movement.
Since 2014, schools and schoolchildren have been repeatedly targeted in Nigeria.
In that year, 276 schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram terrorists in Chibok, an event that drew global attention.
Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates to “Western education is banned,” has explicitly targeted schools to show its opposition to Western-style education and to push a strict interpretation of Islam.
Attacks on schools are symbolic: they strike at institutions that promote literacy, secular knowledge, and government authority, all seen by terrorist groups as threats to their ideological goals. Kidnappings of students often gain global attention, which such groups exploit.
This attack is especially rare in its scope, which also indicates it is well-organized
“The attacks are aimed against Western education and education for girls in particular,” said Back. “This attack is especially rare in its scope, which also indicates it is well-organized.”
The latest attacks come in the aftermath of a bloody and lengthy regional conflict in the Middle East. The conflict, which began with a surprise attack by the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist group against Israel, shocked Israelis.
“The effect of the war is huge,” said Sella. “It showed the potential and the ability of shocking a country to the core, even a country considered strong like Israel.”
It is still unclear who is behind the latest kidnapping, the largest mass abduction in a country tragically familiar with such violence. Other schools have shut down as a precaution.
The incident was also preceded by an attack on a church in the west of the country, further inflaming religious tensions.