Militants allegedly belonging to one of the pastoralist tribes in north-west Nigeria attacked a government-run school and abducted 287 students in the town of Kuriga in the state of Kaduna.
The BBC reports that a witness said the pupils were in the assembly ground at the start of the school day when dozens of gunmen on motorcycles suddenly appeared.
Almost every family in the town is thought to have a child among the kidnapped victims.
The numerous conflicts in northern and central Nigeria have since 2014 regularly involved the abduction of schoolchildren, either for recruitment or for ransom.
This abduction comes only days after a similar abduction of 200 people in north-eastern Nigeria.
Local observers say both these attacks are likely attempts to collect ransom money.
Central and Northen Nigeria have been plagued by lawlessness and violence for years, and despite promises to root out the problem, Nigeria’s central governments have been largely unsuccessful.
[Image: Anti-Boko Haram protest in London in 2015, Garry Knight, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102457196]