Lagos: Gunmen from a criminal gang kidnapped 25 people and killed a staff member in an early morning raid on a northwestern Nigerian girls' secondary school on Monday, police said.
The latest attack comes more than a decade after nearly 300 girls were abducted from Chibok in the restive northeastern region and sparked international outcry.
Since then, there has been a string of other abductions involving school children.
Police on Monday said the gang armed with "sophisticated weapons, shooting sporadically, stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School" in Kebbi state at about 4:00 am (0300 GMT).
Police were deployed but "unfortunately, the suspected bandits had already scaled through the fence of the school and abducted twenty-five students from their hostel to unknown destination," police said in a statement.
The school deputy head was shot dead while a security guard was injured during the attack, according to a report prepared for the United Nations.
The military, police tactical units and local vigilantes have "been deployed in the area and they are currently combing the bandits' routes and nearby forest" in a bid rescue the abducted students and arrest the gangs, police said.
Nigeria's northwest has for years been seeing a rise in heavily armed criminal gangs known as "bandits" who steal cattle, raid villages, kidnap and kill residents and loot and burn homes.
The northwest has become the region most affected by kidnappings.
