School attack in Nigeria: Hundreds of children released, say local authorities

Hundreds of schoolchildren abducted last week from a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria have been released, local authorities told the BBC.

A spokesman for the Katsina state governor said 344 had been released and all were in good condition.

However, other reports suggest that some remain in the hands of their captors.

The attack was denounced by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which hours earlier published a video that apparently showed some of the children.

In his statement, the spokesman, Abdul Labaran, said that the children were being taken to the regional capital, the city of Katsina, and that they would soon be reunited with their families.

He said the clip posted by Boko Haram was authentic, but a message apparently from the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, was instead from a copycat.

Authorities had previously given a figure lower than that of the locals for the number of kidnapped and it is unclear if all are now safe.

The state governor, Aminu Bello Masari, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying: “We have recovered most of the children. They are not all of them,” while a security source told AFP news agency that some remained. with their captors.

Labaran said none of the kidnapped children had been killed, contradicting a child shown in the video who said some had been killed by Nigerian fighter jets.

It is unclear how the release of the children came about, but the news was confirmed to BBC Hausa by another state government official.

Witnesses said gunmen arrived at the school in Kankara city on Friday night last week, and many students jumped over the school’s fence and fled when they heard gunshots.

Others were tracked down by the gunmen, who tricked them into thinking they were security personnel, the students who escaped said. Once the students were detained, the armed men took them into the nearby forest.

On Thursday, a video with the Boko Haram emblem was released, showing dozens of children, some of whom appear to be very young.

One of the children said that they were kidnapped by the gang of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, and that all government troops that had been sent to help them should return.

Boko Haram has been known for school kidnappings for the past decade, including in Chibok in 2014, when nearly 300 schoolchildren were kidnapped. His name loosely translates as “Western education is forbidden.”

However, these kidnappings have so far taken place in the northeast, where Boko Haram is based.

Despite Boko Haram’s claim, the Nigerian government said it was carried out by local gangs linked to the Islamist group.

Armed attacks and kidnappings abound in northwestern Nigeria and are often attributed to bandits, a vague term for gangs operating in the area.

Amnesty International says that more than 1,100 people were killed by bandits in the first six months of this year and that the government failed to bring the attackers to justice.