Another 130 kidnapped schoolchildren released in Nigeria | Nigeria
Nigerian authorities announced that they secured the release of 130 more children kidnapped from a Catholic school in November, following the release of 100 children at the beginning of this month.
“Another 130 kidnapped Niger state students have been released, none of them remain in captivity,” presidential spokesman Sunday Dare said in a post on X accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
In late November, gunmen abducted hundreds of students and staff from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in the country’s north-central Niger state.
Nigeria has recently witnessed a new wave of mass abductions, reminiscent of the abduction of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014.
A UN source said the remaining students would be taken to Minna, the capital of Niger state, on Tuesday.
The exact number of people taken since the kidnapping in the Papiri countryside and how many remain in captivity remain unclear.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said a total of 315 students and staff were kidnapped. About 50 people escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7 the government secured the release of about 100 more people.
A later statement from President Bola Tinubu stated that the number of people still detained was 115; that’s about 50 less than the first CAN figure suggests.
It has not yet been made public who is holding the children or how the government secured their release.
Although kidnapping for ransom is a common way for criminals and armed groups to make money, mass kidnappings in Nigeria have shed a disturbing light on the country’s already dire security situation.
In November, attackers kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshipers, and a bride and her bridesmaids; Male agricultural workers, women and children were also taken hostage.
The kidnappings come as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has claimed that mass killings of Christians in the West African country amount to “genocide.”
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject this framework, long used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.
This religiously diverse country of 230 million people has numerous security concerns, from jihadists in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest, and Christians and Muslims have been killed in numerous conflicts.
