KANO, (Nigeria): More than 300 schoolgirls were abducted by gunmen in northwest Nigeria on Friday in the country’s latest mass kidnapping, and a rescue bid was under way, regional police said.

A suspected criminal gang attacked the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, a village in Zamfara state, around 1 am, police and a local official said. It is Nigeria’s third school attack in less than three months — a series that has revived traumatic memories of the “Chibok girls” kidnapped by jihadists nearly seven years ago.

Zamfara State Police Command, working in collaboration with the military, “commenced a joint search and rescue operations with a view to rescuing the 317 students,” police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement. The situation in Jangebe was tense as local people vented their anger on journalists, security personnel and officials who arrived in the village. “The villagers stoned the two vehicles we were in, which forced us to hurriedly leave,” said Umar Shehu, a reporter with Daily Trust newspaper, told AFP.