Nigerian authorities say all schoolchildren abducted from a Catholic boarding school in Niger State late last year have now been freed, closing one of the country’s most closely watched kidnapping cases in recent months.
A presidential spokesman, Sunday Dare, announced on Sunday that a further 130 pupils had been released, following the earlier rescue of about 100 children earlier in December. “Another 130 abducted Niger State pupils released, none left in captivity,” Dare wrote in a post on X.
The mass abduction occurred in late November, when gunmen stormed St Mary’s Co educational Boarding School in the rural settlement of Papiri, north central Nigeria. Hundreds of students and staff were taken in an operation that echoed past large scale kidnappings that have shaped Nigeria’s security narrative over the past decade.
Determining the exact number of victims proved difficult from the outset. The Christian Association of Nigeria initially reported that 315 students and staff were missing after the attack. Officials later said about 50 people escaped during the chaos, while another group made their way home in the days that followed.
On December seven, government authorities confirmed the release of around 100 abductees. Sunday’s announcement appeared to account for the remainder, although some uncertainty persists. A United Nations source familiar with the situation told AFP that many children thought to have been kidnapped had in fact fled during the raid and returned to their villages independently, complicating early estimates.
The source said remaining students were expected to be transported to Minna, the Niger State capital, for reunification and documentation, while final verification continues. “We still need to confirm the numbers,” said Daniel Atori, a spokesman for the Christian Association of Nigeria in the state.
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Authorities have not disclosed who carried out the kidnapping or whether ransom payments were involved. Such silence is common in Nigeria, where abductions have become a routine source of income for armed gangs operating across vast rural regions.
The episode unfolded amid a broader surge in mass kidnappings across the country in November, with schoolchildren, worshippers, brides, farmers and women all targeted in separate incidents. Analysts say the practice has evolved into an organised criminal economy. A recent report by Lagos based consultancy SBM Intelligence estimates that kidnappings generated about one point six six million dollars between July 2024 and June 2025.
The crisis continues to draw international attention, including from the United States, where claims of religiously motivated violence have been raised and firmly rejected by Nigeria’s government and independent observers.