ABUJA, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s government has secured the release of 100 schoolchildren who were abducted last month in Niger state in one of the country’s worst mass kidnappings to date, local broadcaster Channels Television reported on Sunday.
The Christian Association of Nigeria has said 303 children and 12 school staff were kidnapped on Nov. 21 by gunmen at St Mary’s Catholic boarding school in Papiri, a hamlet in Niger state.
Fifty pupils managed to escape in the following hours, but since then there had been no update on the whereabouts or conditions of the other children, some as young as six, and the missing school staff.
Channels Television did not immediately provide details about the release.
The school attack put a spotlight on the persistent insecurity in Nigeria more than 10 years after the Chibok abductions, at a time when the country is under scrutiny from U.S. President Donald Trump over its alleged ill-treatment of Christians.
(Reporting by Camillus Eboh Writing by Bate Felix, editing by Silvia Aloisi and Nick Zieminski)
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