Bandits Release 15 Students in Kaduna

Officials say bandits have released 15 additional students kidnapped last month from a Baptist school in northwest Nigeria.

Reverend John Hayab, the school’s principal, told Reporters on Sunday that parents had raised and paid an undisclosed ransom to liberate the pupils, who were among more than 100 kidnapped from Bethel Baptist High School on July 5.

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“The students are already being released and would be handed over to their parents any moment from now,” Hayab said.

Hayab had stated that the kidnappers wanted one million naira ($2,430) for each pupil.

So far, 56 of the kidnapped Bethel students have been released or have escaped their captors.

The release was confirmed by Kaduna state’s commissioner for internal security, Samuel Aruwan, who did not immediately comment on the ransom payment.

The Bethel kidnapping was one in a series of kidnappings carried out by armed gangs known locally as bandits, who have long terrorized northwest and central Nigeria by plundering, stealing cattle, and kidnapping for ransom.

See also BANDITS DEMAND N500MILLION RANSOM FOR ABDUCTED NIGER STATE COMMISSIONER OF INFORMATION.

Since December, when gangs began targeting schools and colleges, around 1,000 students have been kidnapped.

Negotiations have resulted in the release of the majority of the detainees.

However, many hostages remain held hostage, including more than 136 minors taken in June from an Islamic seminary in Tegina, Niger State’s central region, four of whom have died in captivity.

“They phoned the head of the school and told him to ask parents to send the children new clothes as the ones they have been wearing are in shreds,” Maryam Mohammed, whose seven children are among the hostages, told AFP.

Last week, nine students from an Islamic seminary in Katsina State were kidnapped by motorcycle-riding terrorists, the second such event in as many months.

President Muhammadu Buhari urged on state governments to cease paying bandits in February, and Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai has publicly refused to do so.

However, desperate parents and communities frequently raise and pay ransoms on their own.