MAGA, Nigeria (AP) — A schoolgirl who was abducted with 24 others from a dormitory in northwestern Nigeria has escaped and is safe, the school's principal told The Associated Press on Tuesday, as hunters joined security forces in the search for the missing students in forests close to the school.
The girls were kidnapped before dawn on Monday, when gunmen attacked the dorm at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Kebbi state's Maga town. Local police said the gunmen scaled the fence to enter the school premises and exchanged gunfire with police officers before seizing the girls and killing a staff member.
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Amina Hassan, standing, wife of the vice principal of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory, abducted schoolgirls and killed her husband, with mourners, in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
Amina Hassan, standing, wife of the vice principal of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory, abducted schoolgirls and killed her husband, with mourners, in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
Amina Hassan, wife of the vice principal of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory, abducted schoolgirls and killed her husband, stands stand in front of the room where he was killed, in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
A view of the school bus of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory and abducted schoolgirls, is seen in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
A general view of the school from which school children were kidnapped by gunmen in Kebbi, Nigeria, Monday, Nov 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Deeni Jibo)
No group has claimed responsibility for taking the girls, but analysts and locals say gangs of bandits often target schools, travelers and remote villagers in kidnappings for ransoms. Authorities say the bandits are mostly former herders who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over strained resources.
Mass school kidnappings are especially common in northern Nigeria, and the Kebbi school is close to conflict hot spots including Zamfara and Sokoto states, where several gangs are known to operate and hide out.
The student who escaped arrived home late Monday, hours after the kidnapping, according to the school principal Musa Rabi Magaji. Another student was able to escape the gunmen in the minutes after the raid and was not abducted, the principal told AP.
“They are safe and sound,” Magaji said.
A video verified by AP shows the two schoolgirls, who appear to be in their early teens, lost in thought and surrounded by family and other villagers, with hijabs covering their heads. High schoolers in Nigeria are usually aged between 12 and 17.
Security forces and hunters, meanwhile, have intensified efforts to find and rescue the others, local officials said. Security teams swept nearby forests where gangs often hide while others were deployed along major roads leading to the school.
Kebbi Gov. Nasir Idris visited the school on Monday and assured of efforts to rescue the girls, and Nigeria's Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu met with soldiers in the hours after the attack and directed “intelligence-driven operations and relentless day-and-night pursuit of the abductors,” according to an army statement.
“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence. Success is not optional,” the army chief said.
By Tuesday morning, the dorm and the classroom block — a walking distance apart — were deserted. In Maga, families waiting for news of their children's freedom expressed anger and frustration.
Resident Abdulkarim Abdullahi, whose daughter and granddaughter — aged 13 and 10, respectively — were among the kidnapped children, said he overheard the noise from his house.
“I was at home when I suddenly heard gunshots from the school. We were told that the attackers entered the school with many motorcycles,” said Abdullahi.
Amina Hassan, wife of the school vice principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku, said the assailants broke into their house, which is on the school premises, and fatally shot her husband. He was also the school's chief security officer.
“Three of them entered and asked my husband, ‘Are you Malam Hassan?’ and he responded, ‘Yes, I am.’ They told him that we are here to kill you,” she told the AP.
At least 1,500 students have been seized in the region since Boko Haram jihadi extremists seized 276 Chibok schoolgirls over a decade ago. But bandits are also active in the region, and analysts say gangs often target schools to gain attention.
Analysts and residents blame the insecurity on a failure to prosecute known attackers, and the rampant corruption that limits weapons supplies to security forces while ensuring a steady supply to the gangs.
“Let’s say people have been kidnapped in the markets — it doesn’t go far, (or) if people have been kidnapped on the road — it doesn’t go far,” said Oluwole Ojewale, a security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies. “What gains traction is when (it is) strategic kidnapping, like school children.”
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
Amina Hassan, standing, wife of the vice principal of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory, abducted schoolgirls and killed her husband, with mourners, in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
Amina Hassan, wife of the vice principal of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory, abducted schoolgirls and killed her husband, stands stand in front of the room where he was killed, in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
A view of the school bus of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, where gunmen on Monday attacked the school dormitory and abducted schoolgirls, is seen in Kebbi, Nigeria, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tunde Omolehin)
A general view of the school from which school children were kidnapped by gunmen in Kebbi, Nigeria, Monday, Nov 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Deeni Jibo)
TENERIFE, Spain (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization sought Saturday to reassure residents of the Spanish island where passengers of a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are expected to be evacuated, issuing them a direct message that the virus was “not another COVID.”
The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, were due on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.
“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a message to the people of Tenerife.
“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.
The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.
Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.
Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.
“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”
Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.
“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”
Spanish Health Minister Monica Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”
The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting to fly them off the island, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.
Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.
All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.
Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.
According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infections diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.
The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.
As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.
Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.
On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.
It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.
Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.
A Spanish Civil Guard officer inspects the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Media crew members stand in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, scan the horizon with binoculars during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger checks his camera inside his cabin on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Crew members of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, wait their turns for a first interview with epidemiologists, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, takes a photo of the ship's weighing anchor in Praia, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
