Around 100 children abducted from a Nigerian boarding school last month were handed to state officials, with many others still missing
MINNA: Around 100 schoolchildren kidnapped from a Catholic school in Nigeria last month were handed over to state officials on Monday.
The children were driven to the Niger State Government House in white buses escorted by military vans and armoured vehicles.
In late November, 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state.
Some 50 escaped immediately afterward, but the fate of the 165 others from St. Mary’s thought to still be in captivity is unclear.
Niger state Governor Umar Bago said the children “will be safely delivered to them and very soon”.
The children handed over will undergo medical checks before they are reunited with their parents.
Theresa Pamma, a UNICEF official, said the children “certainly need some help,” including mental health care.
Bago shook hands with some of the children and led them into a hall where an emir and local officials were seated.
It was unclear how the students’ release was secured.
According to a list of the released children, most of those freed are aged between 10 and 17 years.
It is unclear who seized the children from their boarding school in the remote rural village of Papiri.
A spate of mass abductions in November put a spotlight on Nigeria’s security situation.
The country faces a long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast, while armed gangs attack villages in the northwest.
In November, assailants kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers, and a bride and her bridesmaids.
The kidnappings came as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States.
US President Donald Trump has alleged that mass killings of Christians have amounted to a “genocide”.
The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject that framing.
St. Mary’s “accommodates Christians and Muslims” as students, a spokesman for the Christian Association of Nigeria said.
US Representative Riley Moore said he met with Nigerian security officials as part of a congressional delegation.
The rescue of the 100 children is “a positive demonstration of the government’s increasing response”, he said. – AFP
