Nigeria rescues 100 children abducted from Catholic boarding school

The Nigerian government has rescued some 100 children who were abducted from a Catholic boarding school last month and promised to secure the release of 150 others who remain in captivity.

The children arrived at Government House in the northern state of Niger on Monday in white buses escorted by a dozen military vans and armoured vehicles.

The freed children were between the ages of 10 and 17, who arrived wearing football jerseys, robes and slippers. They were received by officials who hugged and shook hands with some before posing with them in front of cameras.

The children were among some 303 students who were seized from the St Mary’s Catholic School in the Papri community in Niger State on November 21. They were taken along with 12 of their teachers.

Some 50 students escaped in the hours that followed.

Niger’s governor, Mohammed Bago, speaking at Government House in the state capital of Minna, said the students freed on Monday will be “safely delivered” to their parents in Papiri soon.

He said health workers and experts would “thoroughly examine” the children before they are returned to their parents.

“To those who have been praying, please continue to pray,” Bago told a gathering of government and security officials. “We hope to recover the remaining students who are still in captivity.”

‘Steadfast work’

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu commended security agencies “for their steadfast work” in ensuring the safe return of the students, but did not provide further details.

“My directive to our security forces remains that all the students and other abducted Nigerians across the country must be rescued and brought back home safely,” Tinubu said.

“We must account for all the victims,” he added.

A spokesman for Tinubu said 115 students and their 12 teachers remain in captivity, but news agencies put the figure at 165.

Details surrounding the children’s release were not made public, and the government has not said if any ransom – common in such abductions – was paid.

Theresa Pamma, a UNICEF official, said the children will “certainly need some help”, including mental healthcare, after enduring two weeks in captivity.

One of the children freed on Monday, Florence Michael, said they slept on a tarpaulin in the forest.

“They gave us tarpaulin, [said] that we should put it down, that we should lie down and sleep, that we should not make noise for them,” she said.

The parents in faraway Papiri say they were not told about the release of the 100 and only learned about it from the media. With anguish and anticipation, many wondered if their children were among those released or still held.

“I’m just worried about his safety, but praying he should be among” the freed, Samuel Musa said of his 13-year-old son, who was abducted at the school.

“His mother has been sick since the abduction,” Musa told The Associated Press news agency.

It is unclear who seized the children from their boarding school in Papiri.

Locals, however, have blamed armed gangs that target schools and travelers in kidnappings for ransoms across Nigeria’s conflict-battered north.

Mass abductions

The kidnapping of the children in Niger State was among a spate of recent mass abductions in Nigeria, and happened four days after 25 schoolgirls were abducted from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the neighbouring Kebbi State’s Maga town.

A church in the southern Kwara State was also attacked around the same time. The 38 worshippers abducted in that attack last month have also been freed.

The kidnappings came as Nigeria, a religiously diverse country of 230 million people, faces pressure from the United States, with President Donald Trump claiming Christians in the country are facing genocide.

Trump has threatened military intervention in Nigeria over the alleged persecution and threatened to cut aid to the country.

The Nigerian government, local officials and independent analysts reject that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the US and Europe.

Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al Jazeera last month that people of all faiths have been affected by ongoing violence in the country.

“We’ve continuously made our point clear that we acknowledge the fact that there are killings that have taken place in Nigeria, but those killings were not restricted to Christians alone. Muslims are being killed. Traditional worshippers are being killed,” Ebienfa said.

“The majority is not the Christian population.”

According to Pew Research Center estimates, Muslims make up 56 percent of Nigeria’s population, while Christians make up just more than 43 percent.

Armed groups have been engaged in a conflict that has been largely confined to the northeast of the country, which is majority Muslim, and has dragged on for more than 15 years.