At least 27 students were abducted when armed men raided a state-run school in Niger State, north-west Nigeria, the state governor’s spokeswoman said. The gunmen, wearing military fatigues according to witnesses, stormed the Government Science college in the Kagara district at around 2 a.m., overwhelming the school’s security detail. One student was killed during the abduction, according to a resident. The tally of people abducted from the boarding school facility could also rise as an unknown number of teachers are still missing, the spokeswoman for the Niger state governor told an international news channel. The attackers, dressed in military uniforms and masks, stormed the school hostels to take away children, local media reported, adding that some of the children escaped during the incident. President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned “the cowardly attack on innocent school children.” “The President has directed the Armed Forces and Police, to ensure immediate and safe return of all the captives,” Garba Shehu, president’s spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday. No group has claimed responsibility. In December, the Boko Haram armed group claimed responsibility for the abduction of hundreds of students from an all-boys school in the northwestern state of Katsina. The more than 300 schoolboys were released after a few days in captivity. Boko Haram and its splinter faction, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), have for more than a decade waged a violent armed campaign in the northeast of the country and neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language, in 2014 abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok, in the northeastern state of Borno, drawing global condemnation. Some of the girls managed to escape from captivity, while others were either rescued or freed. The fate of more than 100 girls is still unknown. In recent years, armed gangs have surged through Nigeria’s northwest and kidnappers patrol many of the country’s roads.