24 female students kidnapped in Kebbi State released after more than a week

Nigeria’s president says 24 Nigerian girls kidnapped from a boarding school more than a week ago have been released.

On November 17, armed attackers attacked a school in Kebbi State, Nigeria, killing two staff members and abducting 25 students. Soon after, someone was able to escape.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu praised the “quick response” of security forces to the abduction, although the circumstances of the girl’s release remained unclear.

Africa’s most populous country has been hit by a series of kidnappings over the last week, with more than 250 children abducted from a Catholic school on Friday still missing, according to school authorities.

Friday’s kidnapping in Niger state has been described as one of the worst mass kidnappings in Nigeria’s history. However, some officials say the number of missing children is exaggerated.

Speaking on the earlier kidnapping incident in Kebbi State, the Special Adviser to the President, Bayo Onanuga, on Tuesday confirmed that all the abducted schoolgirls had been accounted for.

Onanuga’s statement said the attack prompted similar kidnappings.

President Tinubu said more personnel would be deployed to “vulnerable areas to avoid more kidnappings”.

“The Air Force will maintain constant surveillance of the most remote areas, operating in sync with ground forces to effectively identify, isolate, disrupt and neutralize all hostile elements,” he wrote in a post on X.

More than 1,500 Nigerian school children have been abducted since 2014, including 276 girls in 2014. The infamous Chibok mass kidnapping.

Kidnapping people for ransom by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, has become a major problem in many parts of Nigeria.

In the country’s northeast, jihadist groups have been fighting the government for more than a decade.

at least friday 300 children and staff According to the Christian Council of Nigeria (Can), they were abducted from St. Mary’s Catholic Boarding School in Niger State. The organization said at least 250 people were still missing.

On Wednesday, Niger state governor Umar Bago told the BBC that 11 pupils from St Mary’s School were found in a “farm settlement” and rescued by security forces. He declined to disclose any further details about the operation.

Bago also cast doubt on Can’s claim that 300 people had been kidnapped, saying the group had not provided any reliable data.

“They should open their registers to the authorities,” he said.

Niger State’s police chief also questioned Kan’s figures.

Meanwhile, the Can State Governor of Niger State, Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, director of St. Mary’s School, criticized the government’s response, Says it has made “no meaningful efforts” to rescue those still missing.

The kidnapping at the school was Nigeria’s third in a week, forcing President Bola Tinubu to cancel a weekend trip to the G20 summit in South Africa in response to the crisis.

Dozens of people arrested at a church in the southern Niger state of Kwara have been released.

United Nations education envoy Gordon Brown called on the international community to “do its utmost” to support efforts to repatriate abducted children.

Former British Prime Minister Brown said: “We also have a responsibility to ensure that Nigerian schools are safe places to learn and not places where children are removed from the classroom for criminal profit.”

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump threatened military action. Accuses Nigerian authorities of failing to protect Christians from attacks from Islamic militants.

The Nigerian government has called claims that Christians are being persecuted a “gross distortion of reality.”

The BBC has learned that the schoolgirl abducted from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School (GGCSS) in Kebbi is a Muslim. “Terrorists attack anyone who rejects their murderous ideology – Muslims, Christians and non-believers,” one official said.

Organizations that monitor the violence say most of the jihadist group’s victims are Muslims, as most attacks occur in the country’s majority-Muslim northern region.

Additional reporting by Wedaeli Chibelushi