Nigeria searches for abducted girls

SECURITY forces were scouring western Nigeria for two dozen kidnapped schoolgirls this week, a day after gunmen stormed a church service, killing two people in an attack captured on video.

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Nigerian security forces have been placed on high alert, the information minister said, as the country faces an uncomfortable spotlight on its security situation.

The armed forces are still searching for 24 schoolgirls abducted by unidentified armed men from a secondary school in the northwestern town of Maga in Kebbi state during the night of Sunday to Monday.

One of the girls managed to escape, authorities said, but the school's vice-principal was killed.

In a separate attack on a church in western Nigeria this week, gunmen killed two people during a service that was recorded and broadcast online.

Both the church attack and girls' abduction come after US President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened military action over what he described as the killing of Nigeria's Christians, a narrative rejected by the Nigerian government.