BAGHDAD — Unidentified gunmen broke into the house of a female journalist and activist in Baghdad late Monday night and kidnapped her, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said today, a reminder of the dangers journalists face in a country where authorities have struggled to maintain security nationwide.

The Ministry’s statement didn’t give details on the circumstances surrounding the abduction of Afrah Shawqi al-Qaisi from her house in Baghdad’s southwestern Saydiyah neighborhood. It called on residents to report any information that might benefit the investigation.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the security forces to investigate the kidnapping and to “exert the utmost effort” to save her.

Al-Qaisi, a veteran journalist and an employee of the Iraqi Culture Ministry, is considered one of the critics of the country’s endemic corruption.

On Monday, she published an article criticizing an Interior Ministry officer who badly beat a school principal in the southern city of Nasiriyiah in front of the pupils and teachers for refusing to punish a pupil who quarreled with his daughter.

Citing her family’s account, the head of the Baghdad-based Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, Ziyad al-Ajeeli, said that eight gunmen, claiming to be members of the security forces, took part in the kidnapping.

Iraq is considered one of the most dangerous countries for journalists.