Nearly 140 students, victims of one of the largest mass kidnappings recorded in recent years in Nigeria in early March, were released safely. The number of victims had previously been estimated at around 250 by teachers and villagers.
The children, aged 8 to 15 according to press reports, were taken on March 7 by armed men who attacked their school in the village of Kuriga, in the northwest of the country. Gangs locally known as “bandits” are behind these mass kidnapping in northwest and north-central Nigeria.