Liberation Obtained for 100 Taken Nigerian Schoolchildren, yet Many Are Still Held

The country's government have obtained the freedom of one hundred kidnapped pupils captured by armed men from a Catholic school last month, per reports from a UN source and Nigerian press this past Sunday. Nevertheless, the fate of a further 165 individuals believed to remain held captive stayed unclear.

Context

During November, three hundred and fifteen people were taken from St Mary’s co-educational residential school in north-central a Nigerian state, as the country was gripped by a surge of large-scale kidnappings echoing the notorious 2014 jihadist group abduction of schoolgirls in a town in north-east Nigeria.

Some 50 got away shortly afterward, which left 265 believed to be under kidnappers' control.

The Release

The one hundred students are scheduled to be released to Niger state officials this Monday, stated by the source.

“They are going to be handed over to the government on Monday,” the official told a news agency.

Regional reports also reported that the liberation of the hostages had been achieved, though they lacked details on whether it was the result of dialogue or a security operation, nor on the fate of the remaining students and staff.

The liberation of the students was verified to AFP by presidential spokesman an official.

Reaction

“We've been praying and waiting for their return, should this be accurate then it is positive development,” said a representative, speaking for the local diocese of the Kontagora diocese which manages the school.

“Yet, we are not formally informed and have not been duly notified by the federal government.”

Wider Crisis

Though abductions for money are common in the country as a method for illegal actors to make quick cash, in a series of mass abductions in last month, scores of individuals were taken, placing an uncomfortable attention on Nigeria’s already grim state of safety.

The country is grappling with a years-long Islamist militant uprising in the northeastern region, while armed bandit gangs perpetrate abductions and loot villages in the north-west, and conflicts between farmers and herders over scarce resources occur in the central belt.

On a smaller scale, armed groups connected to secessionist agendas also operate in the nation's restive south-east.

The Chibok Shadow

A first mass kidnappings that drew global concern was in 2014, when about 300 schoolgirls were taken from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok by insurgents.

Ten years on, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom problem has “consolidated into a systematic, profit-seeking enterprise” that raised approximately $$1.66m (£1.24m) between July 2024 and June 2025, as per a analysis by a Lagos-based consultancy.