There are widespread attacks across the country affecting many religious and ethnic groups. Many of them defy a simple explanation.

Students and teachers were taken captive from a Catholic school in the latest in a wave of such attacks in the country.

The girl hid in a toilet; another managed to sneak away. Security forces are still trying to rescue the 24 girls who were abducted in northwestern Nigeria.

The kidnapping echoed the abduction of the Chibok girls 11 years ago and came as U.S. officials pressed the country to address violence against Christians.

President Trump has threatened to send troops to Nigeria, where he says Christianity faces an “existential threat,” an accusation that Nigeria has denied. Ruth Maclean, our West Africa bureau chief, describes how the violence in Nigeria is affecting people of all religions, not only Christians.

Officials have accused the United States of foreign interference and called on Washington to support the country’s democracy instead of fomenting division.