Nearly 300 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren released

Nearly 300 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren have been released, local officials said on Sunday. The students were abducted from their school in the northwestern state of Kaduna more than two weeks ago and walked into the forest.

At least 1,400 Nigerian schoolchildren have been abducted since 2014, when Boko Haram militants abducted hundreds of schoolgirls from the village of Chibok in Borno state. Kidnappings in recent years have been concentrated in the country’s northwest and central regions, where dozens of armed groups regularly target villagers and travelers for ransom.

Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani has not revealed details of the release of the 287 students, at least 100 of whom were aged 12, kidnapped on March 7 from their school in the remote town of Kuriga. or below. In a statement, he thanked Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu for “especially ensuring the safe release of the abducted schoolchildren.”

Tinubu vowed to rescue the children “without paying a dime” as ransom. But kidnappings often come with a ransom, are often arranged by family members, and Nigerian officials rarely acknowledge that ransoms have been paid.

No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings in Kaduna, which locals blame on a group of bandits who carry out mass killings and kidnappings for ransom in the conflict-torn north, most of them with settler communities. Former pastoralists in conflict.

At least two people with extensive knowledge of the security crisis in northwest Nigeria told The Associated Press that the identity of the kidnappers was known.

Murtala Ahmed El-Rufai, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, and Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, a cleric who has negotiated with bandits, said they were hiding in the The area is vast and unsupervised in the forest.

Arrests are rare in mass kidnappings in Nigeria, as victims are often released only after desperate families pay ransoms or through deals with government and security officials.

The Kaduna governor thanked Nigerian security forces and officials for releasing the students. “I spent sleepless nights with National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu… fine-tuning the strategy and coordinating the operations of the security agencies to achieve this successful outcome,” he said.