One hundred of the 303 students and 12 teachers kidnapped on November 21 from the Saint Mary Catholic boarding school, in western Nigeria, have been released, a UN source and the Nigerian presidency announced on Sunday. We remain without news of the approximately 165 people still presumed hostages. This is one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria, a country ravaged by the phenomenon.
Published on: 08/12/2025 - 00:01
This is “comforting news”. One hundred students from a Catholic school in western Nigeria, kidnapped on November 21 by unidentified armed men, were released, we learned on Sunday, December 7, without knowing under what circumstances.
Students released from Saint Mary's Catholic School, in Papiri, Niger State, "will be handed over tomorrow" Monday to local government officials, a UN source said, adding that the students had arrived in Abuja. This release was confirmed to AFP by Nigerian presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare.
A total of 303 students and 12 teachers were forcibly taken from Saint Mary's boarding school, one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria, a country ravaged by the phenomenon. About fifty of them were able to escape their captors shortly after. There is no news of the approximately 165 people still presumed hostages.
“We prayed and waited for their return, if it is true then it is comforting news,” reacted Daniel Atori, spokesperson for Bishop Bulus Yohanna of the Kontagora diocese on which the school depends. “However, we have not been officially informed and have not received any notification from the federal government,” he added.
Major wave of kidnappings in November in Nigeria
Mass kidnappings are common in Nigeria, most carried out by criminal gangs, called "bandits", seeking ransoms.
Also read: In Nigeria, endemic violence “which does not only target Christians”
One of the first mass kidnappings to attract international attention dates back to 2014 when Boko Haram jihadists kidnapped some 300 schoolgirls from a boarding school in Chibok, a town in Borno state (North-East). A decade later, around 90 of them are still missing.
And the phenomenon of kidnapping for ransom has “transformed into a structured for-profit sector” which generated approximately $1.66 million between July 2024 and June 2025, estimates a report from the Lagos-based consultancy firm SBM Intelligence.
The month of November saw a major wave of kidnappings during which more than 400 Nigerians - Muslim schoolgirls, followers of an evangelical church, farmers, a bride and her bridesmaids... - were kidnapped in 15 days, profoundly shaking the nation.
Donald Trump threatens military intervention in Nigeria
The most populous country in Africa, with 230 million inhabitants, Nigeria is almost equally divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south and faces a very degraded security situation.
In addition to a jihadist insurgency active since 2009 in the northeast of the country, attacks, looting and kidnappings perpetrated by bandits, with more financial than ideological motives, have been added in recent years in the northwest and center.
This wave of mass kidnappings also occurred against a backdrop of declarations by Donald Trump on an alleged targeted persecution of Christians in Nigeria by “Islamist terrorists”, a phenomenon that Abuja and independent experts deny. Attacks in Nigeria target and kill both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
The American president, who threatened to intervene militarily, placed Nigeria on the list of "Countries of Particular Concern" (CPC) in terms of religious freedom, citing "an existential threat" hovering over Nigeria's Christians.
With AFP
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