YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Three seminarians were kidnapped in Nigeria’s Edo State on July 10, adding to the escalating crisis of abductions plaguing the country, with Christians increasingly being targeted.

The attack occurred shortly after 9:00 PM local time at the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary in Ivhianokpodi, according to a July 11 statement signed by the director of communications of the Auchi Diocese, Father Peter Egielewa.

He said armed assailants stormed the facility, resulting in the kidnapping of the three students. A security guard was killed during the assault. The three seminarians were carted off into the bush.

He said the other seminarians had been moved to a location he described as “a safe area until security measures around the seminary are tightened.”

“Unfortunately, no communication has been had with the abductors yet,” he said.

Police investigating the kidnapping described the incident as a “senseless act of violence against a religious institution and innocent young students.” The statement described the attack as “not only barbaric, but also a direct attack on public peace and security.”

In an interview with ACI Africa, Bishop Gabriel Ghiakhomo Dunia of Auchi, urged parents of the kidnapped seminarians to stay calm and not be “crushed by fear, threats, or intimidation.”

“These things are not happening only at the Seminary. Some Seminarians have even been kidnapped from their homes while on holiday. We must remain vigilant and do all we can to protect them,” he said.

The bishop said he was in the United States when he learned of the kidnapping of the seminarians, and extended his “deepest condolences to the family of the gallant officer who was killed.”

He said the attack was curious, given that all measures had been taken to ensure the safety of the seminary, following an earlier attack on the same institution  on October 27, 2024 .On that occasion, Father Thomas Oyode, rector of the seminary, was kidnapped and taken into the bush, offering himself as a hostage in place of the two young seminarians whom the bandits originally set out to take. He was eventually released after 11 days in captivity.

Dunia blamed the security forces for failing in their duty, leading to the latest kidnapping.

“There were supposed to be five civil defense officers and ten local vigilantes stationed around the compound, at the gates and behind the Seminary. I don’t understand why they weren’t there. We had even paid for the deployment of mobile police (MOPOL) units to provide permanent security, yet they never resumed work,” he said.

The latest kidnapping incident underscores the worsening security situation in Nigeria.  On June 1, a Nigerian Catholic priest who recently served in the United States was abducted by Boko Haram along with other travelers near the northeastern town of Gwoza, close to the border with Cameroon.

On March 26, Pontifical Charity, Aid to the Church in Need reported that the number of religious kidnapped in Nigeria since the beginning of 2025 had risen to 12. Two of them – Father Sylvester Okechukwu and seminarian Andrew Peter – were murdered by their kidnappers.

The sheer numbers make the first quarter of 2025 the worst since 2022, when seven religious were kidnapped with one killed. In 2023, it was two kidnapped and one killed, and last year, three were kidnapped with one fatality.

Between 2015 and early 2025, 145 priests were kidnapped in Nigeria.

A new report by Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited (BSIL), a private security and intelligence firm in Nigeria, indicates that 5,400 Kidnappings were recorded in Nigeria in the first months of 2025, and 6,800 deaths were recorded within the same period.

The African nation has since 2009 been reeling from a Boko Haram insurgency intent on establishing a caliphate across the Sahel, but its murderous campaign in Nigeria has been worsened by the advent of other terrorist groups such as jihadist Fulani herdsmen and Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP.

Christians have largely been targeted by these groups. They aren’t only kidnapped, they are also killed.

“The violence targeting priests and Christian communities in Nigeria has deeply wounded the soul of the Church,” said Maria Lozano, Director of Aid to the Church in Need, (ACN) International Press and Media Department.

“Beyond the immediate threat to life, there is a silent suffering that weighs heavily on daily life. In many regions, pastoral ministry has been deeply affected — catechesis is imitated, liturgical celebrations are held with pain, and priests are often forced to limit their movements for safety reasons,” she told Crux.

“In areas like Benue, the Middle Belt, or southern Kaduna, some communities are burying victims month after month. There are no isolated events — it has become a painful process. Bishops and priests continue to fulfill their prophetic mission, but many are exhausted. Some have told us: ‘Sometimes, we have no words left.’ Because how do you console parishioners that have been attacked several times? What do you say to someone who has lost multiple members of their family?”

The lack of centralized, reliable data, the complexity of the violence, as well as underreporting make it hard to come up with exact figures of Christians killed and kidnapped.  However, based on reports from reputable organizations – such as Open Doors, International Christian Concern, SBM Intelligence, ACLED and Intersociety – a general picture suggests that at least 60,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009.

Open Doors’ World Watch List estimates that over 13,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria specifically for their faith between January 2015 and December 2023, while 12,000 were kidnapped. ACLED puts the toll even higher-at least 50,000 were killed within the same period.

A report by the Catholic-inspired NGO, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety released on February 14,2024 said Nigeria had become “the second deadliest Genocide-Country in the world accounting for more than 150,000 religiously motivated defenseless civilian deaths since 2009 … Nigeria’s alarming death toll is only surpassed by the battered State of Syria which has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since 2011 with civilian deaths of 306,000.”

The same report indicated that 18,500 Christian churches had been attacked, 1,100 Christian communities sacked within the same period, forcing over 15 million Christians to flee their homes. 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze, and approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims also died in Islamist attacks.

According to a BBC investigation, at least 9,000 Christians are killed globally every year, and 90 percent of them are in Nigeria.

The Director of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, told Crux that the killings and kidnappings “are often done with the complicity of the Nigerian government and the Nigerian security forces.”

“What Nigeria has is a Jihadist military,” he said.

With a complicit military, many Christian leaders in Nigeria have on different occasions suggested that Christians need to find ways of defending themselves.

Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe – the President of the International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN) and Director, Public Affairs – suggested to Crux that it was high time Nigerian Christians took up arms in self-defense.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of the Abuja archdiocese has voiced a similar position, explaining that self-defense is a form of “natural justice” that saves one from “bloodthirsty criminals.”