Dozens of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls rescued – officials
Gunmen attacked a government school in Kebbi State last week, abducting 25 students
All 24 schoolgirls abducted from a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria have been rescued after more than a week in captivity, the authorities have confirmed.
The girls were taken hostage on November 17 when gunmen raided the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga village, Kebbi State. Two staff members at the school were killed during the attack, according to the West African country’s police. Officials initially reported that 25 girls had been seized, but later clarified that one student managed to slip away from the gunmen within moments of the raid.
In a statement on Tuesday, a special adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said the “Kebbi incident triggered some other copycat kidnappings in Eruku in Kwara State and Papiri in Niger State.”
He said Tinubu expressed relief “that all the 24 girls have been accounted for” and urged the deployment of more troops to “vulnerable areas to avert further incidents of kidnapping.” The president also praised security forces for their “swift response” to the attack but did not say how the girls were freed.
Africa’s most populous nation has seen a surge in deadly attacks and abductions in recent days, a crisis that forced President Tinubu to cancel his trip to South Africa to attend the just concluded G20 Summit.
Last Friday, armed men stormed St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, seizing more than 300 pupils and 12 teachers in one of Nigeria’s largest mass kidnappings in years. On Sunday, the Christian Association of Nigeria said 50 students escaped their captors over the weekend, while the others remain missing. Last week, 38 people were abducted and two others were killed in an assault on the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku. The government said all the kidnapped churchgoers were freed on Sunday.
In a separate post on X late on Tuesday, Tinubu said he has ordered a full security cordon over the forests in Kwara State in response to the kidnappings and acts of terrorism. “The Air Force is to maintain continuous surveillance over the most remote areas, synchronizing operations with ground units to effectively identify, isolate, disrupt, and neutralize all hostile elements,” he wrote.
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