More than 100 kidnapped students have been released from the hands of their kidnappers in Nigeria. The director of the Islamic Salihu Tanko Islamiyya school in the city of Tegina in the north-western state of Niger, Umar Idris, told the German press agency on Friday. It was initially unclear whether the students were released on Thursday evening or whether they were released after the ransom was paid. A total of 136 girls and boys were kidnapped from school in May. A handful of the students, the youngest of whom are three years old, died in captivity, according to school authorities, while another 16 were able to escape, Idris said.
Large numbers of children are regularly kidnapped in Nigeria in connection with school robberies. Behind it are both Islamist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and criminal gangs who want to extort ransom. The most spectacular case occurred in 2014 when the Islamist terrorist militia Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of abducted people. Authorities estimate that around 1,000 children have been kidnapped since December 2020. Many of the boys and girls have disappeared without a trace.