© AP
In Nigeria, about 140 students have been freed who were abducted by armed persons from a school in the northwest of the country in early March. Local authorities and the army reported this on Sunday.
The schoolchildren were unharmed, said a statement from Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State. According to the military, 137 hostages – 76 girls and 61 boys – were rescued in Zamfara State and handed over to the Kaduna State government. Previously, the number of victims had been estimated by teachers and villagers at around 250, but that balance has since been revised downwards.
The children, aged 8 to 15, were taken by gunmen who attacked their school in the village of Kuriga on March 7, according to local media.
In Nigeria, mass kidnappings for ransom are a real scourge. The most famous incident dates from April 2014, when members of the jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok.