MAIDUGURI, Mar 24: Nearly 300 students and staff abducted by gunmen from a school in northern Nigeria this month have been released unharmed, the office of the governor of the state of Kaduna said on Sunday, days before a deadline to pay a $690,000 ransom.
The kidnapping of 287 students on March 7 in Kuriga, a dusty town in northwestern Kaduna state, was the first mass abduction in Africas most populous nation since 2021 when more than 150 students were taken from a high school in Kaduna.
A security source said the students were rescued in a forest in neighbouring Zamfara state and were being escorted by the army to the Kaduna capital for medical tests before being reunited with their families.
Abductions at Nigerian schools were first carried out by jihadist group Boko Haram, which seized 276 students from a girls school in Chibok in northeastern Borno State a decade ago. Some of the girls have never been released.
Since then the tactic has been widely adopted by criminal gangs without ideological affiliation.
Kaduna governor Uba Sani said the countrys National Security Adviser coordinated the release of the Kuriga schoolchildren. He did not provide further details. —REUTERS
