A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers have been abducted by gunmen during Friday’s attack on St Mary’s Catholic School in north-central Nigeria’s Niger State, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said, as security fears accelerate in Africa’s most populous nation.

The update from an earlier tally of 215 schoolchildren was announced on Saturday and was changed “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out”, according to a statement issued by the Most Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger State chapter of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.

The attack comes just days after armed men stormed a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria, abducting 25 schoolgirls in similar circumstances in neighbouring Kebbi State’s Maga town, which is 1

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