Another 130 kidnapped schoolchildren released in Nigeria

Nigerian authorities say they have 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 the country’s north-central Niger state.Nigeria has recently seen a new wave of mass abductions, reminiscent of the kidnapping of schoolgirls in the town of 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 students and staff kidnapped from St Mary’s school remains unclear. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/EPAThe 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, or how the government secured their release.Though kidnappings for ransom are a common way for criminals and armed groups to make money, a spate of mass abductions in Nigeria has put an uncomfortable spotlight on the country’s already grim security situation.In November, assailants kidnapped two dozen Muslim schoolgirls, 38 church worshippers and a bride and her bridesmaids, with male farm workers, women and children also taken hostage.The kidnappings come as Nigeria faces a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that mass killings of Christians in the west African country amount to a “genocide”.The Nigerian government and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the US and Europe.The religiously diverse country of 230 million people has myriad security concerns, from jihadists in the north-east to armed “bandit” gangs in the north-west, and its multiple conflicts have seen Christians and Muslims killed.