Nigeria says 130 kidnapped Catholic schoolchildren freed

The state has seen a question of caller wide abductions, arsenic it suffers from aggregate interlinked information concerns.

Nigerian authorities person secured the merchandise of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic schoolhouse successful November, according to a statesmanlike spokesman, aft 100 were freed earlier this month.

“Another 130 Abducted Niger State Pupils Released, None Left In Captivity,” Sunday Dare said successful a station connected X connected Sunday.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 4Twenty-four schoolgirls released aft northwestern Nigeria kidnapping
• list 2 of 4Is determination a ‘Christian genocide’ successful Nigeria?
• list 3 of 4Armed men kidnap 13 women successful Nigeria’s latest abduction
• list 4 of 4Nigeria rescues 100 children abducted from Catholic boarding school

In precocious November, hundreds of students and unit were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding schoolhouse successful north-central Niger State.

The onslaught came amid a question of wide abductions reminiscent of the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls successful the municipality of Chibok.

The West African state suffers from aggregate interlinked information concerns, from equipped groups successful the northeast to equipped “bandit” gangs successful the northwest.

The nonstop fig of children taken from St Mary’s has been unclear passim the ordeal.

Initially, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said that 315 students and unit were unaccounted for aft the onslaught successful the agrarian hamlet of Papiri.

About 50 of them escaped instantly afterwards, and connected December 7, the authorities secured the merchandise of about 100 people.

That would permission astir 165 thought to beryllium inactive successful captivity earlier Sunday’s announcement that 130 were rescued.

However, a UN root told the AFP quality bureau that each those taken appeared to person been released, arsenic dozens thought to person been kidnapped had managed to tally disconnected during the onslaught and marque their mode home.

The accounting has been analyzable due to the fact that the children’s homes are scattered crossed swaths of agrarian Nigeria, sometimes requiring 3 oregon 4 hours of question by motorbike to scope their distant villages, the root said.

The root told the AFP that “the remaining acceptable of girls/secondary schoolhouse students volition beryllium taken to Minna”, the superior of Niger State, connected Monday.

“We’ll person to inactive bash last verification,” Daniel Atori, a spokesperson for CAN successful Niger State, told the AFP.

Mass kidnappings

It has not been made nationalist who seized the children from their boarding school, oregon however the authorities secured their release.

Kidnappings for ransom are a communal mode for criminals and equipped groups to marque speedy currency successful Nigeria.

But a spate of wide abductions successful November enactment an uncomfortable spotlight connected the country’s already grim information situation.

Assailants kidnapped 2 twelve Muslim schoolgirls, 38 religion worshippers, and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children besides taken hostage.

The kidnappings besides travel arsenic Nigeria faces a diplomatic violative from the United States, wherever President Donald Trump has alleged that determination person been wide killings of Christians successful Nigeria that amounted to a “genocide”, and helium threatened subject intervention.

Nigeria’s authorities and autarkic analysts reject that framing, which has agelong been utilized by the Christian close successful the US and Europe.

One of the archetypal wide kidnappings that drew planetary attraction was successful 2014, erstwhile astir 300 girls were seized from their boarding schoolhouse successful the northeastern municipality of Chibok by the Boko Haram equipped group.

A decennary later, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom situation has “consolidated into a structured, profit-seeking industry” that raised immoderate $1.66m betwixt July 2024 and June 2025, according to a caller study by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.