The Nigerian armed forces are still searching for the 25 schoolgirls recently kidnapped in the northwest of the country, their abduction sparking reactions in the United States where a campaign claiming that Christians are persecuted in Nigeria is stirring conservative circles, including President Donald Trump.

Armed men attacked the girls' school in Maga, Kebbi State in northwestern Nigeria, overnight Sunday to Monday, killing the school's deputy headmaster, Hassan Makuku, before fleeing with the abducted schoolgirls.

In Nigeria, the most populous country in West Africa plagued by insecurity, mass kidnappings are common, especially since the kidnapping by Boko Haram jihadists of nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok, in the northeast, in 2014.

In the United States, a member of the House of Representatives, Riley Moore, called for "prayers" for the kidnapped high school girls.

"Although we do not have all the details regarding this horrific attack, we know that it occurred in a Christian enclave in northern Nigeria," the Republican congressman said on his X account.

The high school girls "are all Muslim," Kebbi state police told AFP on Tuesday.

- Tensions with the United States-

The abduction of the 25 schoolgirls took place against a backdrop of tensions between the United States and Nigeria, with Donald Trump mentioning "murders of Christians" perpetrated by "Islamist terrorists" in Nigeria and raising the possibility of a US military intervention.

Nigerian authorities have always refuted these allegations, claiming that the insecurity plaguing the country is killing more Muslims than Christians.

This rhetoric is being pushed in Washington by conservative elected officials, notably Mr. Moore, as well as Christian advocacy groups.

US lawmakers are set to decide on Thursday whether Nigeria should be added to the list of "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC) regarding religious freedom, as requested by Donald Trump. Sanctions could then be imposed on Nigerian officials.

On Monday, the Nigerian army chief of staff ordered his troops to conduct searches "day and night" to find the 25 schoolgirls.

"We must find these children (...) success is not optional," General Waidi Shaibu told his troops deployed in Kebbi State on Monday.

- Break-in in the middle of the night -

The wife of the deputy headmaster of the school, who was killed in the attack, said she was woken in the middle of the night by noises coming from outside her house. Moments later, armed men burst into their home in Maga, Kebbi State.

"We started fighting with them and one of them took out his gun and shot my husband, then he dragged me by the hand out of the house," she told Nigerian television station Channels.

"I was still screaming when my daughter arrived, they left me and took her," she recounted, adding that her daughter was eventually able to escape because the attackers were distracted by the high school girls they kidnapped.

This is the second mass abduction of students in Kebbi in four years. In 2021, "bandits" abducted more than 100 students and some staff members from the Federal Government College in Yauri.

The students were gradually released over the past two years. Some students were forced into marriage and returned with babies.

- between jihadist threat and "bandits" -

The state of Kebbi is caught between the jihadist threat from neighboring Niger and that of "bandits," criminal gangs who loot villages, extort money, kidnap and kill inhabitants throughout the northern part of the country.

Many of them operate from camps set up in the Zamfara forest, located not far from Maga, straddling the states of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger, from where they launch attacks against villages.

"We give our word that we will do everything in our power to save these children," Kebbi Governor Nasir Idris told Nigerian media in Maga on Monday evening.

"The government (...) has ordered the security forces to intervene immediately to guarantee the release of the abducted students," said Defense Minister Bello Matawalle, calling on residents to "remain calm."