By Chima Phillips-
Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, according to a presidential spokesman, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
It has become routine news for young children in Nigerian to be kidnapped and then released following the suspicious granting of Ransoms.
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Over 250 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri on 21 November. Earlier this month about 100 of the children were released.
The authorities confirmed “the rescue of the remaining 130 children and staff” in a statement, saying “not a single pupil is left in captivity”
“Another 130 Abducted Niger State Pupils Released, None Left In Captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X on Sunday.list 3 of 4Armed men kidnap 13 women in Nigeria’s latest abduction
list 4 of Nigeria rescues 100 children abducted from Catholic boarding school
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In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger State. The attack came amid a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok.
Nigeria is plagued with complex security concerns, raging from armed groups in the northeast to armed “bandit” gangs in the northwest.
The exact number of children taken from St Mary’s had been unclear throughout the ordeal.
Initially, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said that 315 students and staff were unaccounted for after the attack in the rural hamlet of Papiri. An estimated 50 of them escaped immediately afterwards, and on December 7, the government secured the release of about 100 people.
That would leave about 165 thought to be still in captivity before Sunday’s announcement that 130 were rescued.
However, a UN source told the AFP news agency that all those taken appeared to have been released, as dozens thought to have been kidnapped had managed to run off during the attack and make their way home.
A source told the AFP that “the remaining set of girls/secondary school students will be taken to Minna”, the capital of Niger State, on Monday.
“We’ll have to still do final verification,” Daniel Atori, a spokesman for CAN in Niger State, told the AFP.
It has not been made public who seized the children from their boarding school, or how the government secured their release.
Kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash in Nigeria.
But a spate of mass abductions in November put an uncomfortable spotlight on the country’s already grim security situation.
Assailants kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers, and a bride and her bridesmaids, with farmers, women and children also taken hostage.
The kidnappings also come as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, after President Donald Trump alleged that there have been mass killings of Christians in Nigeria that amounted to a “genocide”, and he threatened military intervention.
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