Over 220 pupils and teachers kidnapped from Nigerian school

LAGOS, Nov 22 (AFP): Gunmen kidnapped 227 pupils and teachers from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, officials said Friday, in the second brazen school abduction in a week.

All of the 215 students taken from St Mary's school in Niger state were girls, according to a spokesman for the Christian Association of Nigeria which added that 12 teachers were also abducted.

Amid mounting fears over security in Africa's most populous nation, authorities in the nearby states of Katsina and Plateau ordered all schools to close as a precautionary measure.