Federal Government (FG) said it has secured the release of a further 130 schoolchildren kidnapped from a Catholic school in November, after 100 were freed earlier this month.
“Another 130 abducted Niger state pupils released, none left in captivity,” presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare said on X, in a post accompanied by a photo of smiling children.
In late November, gunmen kidnapped hundreds of students and staff from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in Niger State.
There has recently been an upsurge in mass abductions, reminiscent of the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014.
A UN source said the remaining schoolchildren would be taken to Minna, the capital of Niger State, on Tuesday.
The exact number of people taken and how many have remained in captivity has been unclear since the kidnapping in the rural hamlet of Papiri.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said that a total of 315 students and staff were kidnapped. Some 50 escaped immediately afterwards, and on 7 December the government secured the release of about 100 more.
A statement from President Bola Tinubu then put the number of people still being held at 115 – about 50 fewer than the initial CAN figure would suggest.
It has not been made public who seized the children, though terrorists are suspected, or how the government secured their release.
