Nigeria Secures The Release Of 100 Abducted School Children

Nigeria Secures Release of 100 Abducted Schoolchildren Nigeria Nigerian authorities secured the release of 100 schoolchildren who were abducted from a Catholic school in central Nigeria last month in one of the country’s worst mass kidnappings in its history, Reuters reported. According to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), 303 students and 12 staff were kidnapped on Nov. 21 from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri. While 50 students escaped within hours, the whereabouts of the other children and staff members remained unknown. The president’s national security advisor said it was not clear when the children would be reunited with their families, while Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, in charge of the school, said he thinks authorities need time to process the students and provide support before organizing a formal handover, the BBC noted. The kidnapping at St Mary’s Catholic school was the latest incident in a wave of mass abductions that has been sweeping the West African country, where schools and places of worship have been increasingly targeted. Days before the St Mary’s attack, two people were killed and 38 abducted in an assault on the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara state. A day before that, two people died, and 25 Muslim students were abducted from a girls’ secondary school in Kebbi state. All those kidnapped in those two instances have since been released. While it is unclear who is behind these abductions, analysts think they were carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments. Meanwhile, a presidential spokesman previously told the BBC that the state thinks jihadist groups are responsible for the attacks. And even though paying ransom has been outlawed in the country in an effort to curb funding for kidnap gangs, it is widely believed that the money is still often paid. Nigeria’s security crisis gained international attention after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut off aid and send the military into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” if the government does not halt what he described as “the killing of Christians.” Analysts, however, argue that members of all faiths in Nigeria are targeted by this violence indiscriminately.