Gunmen release some students in northern Nigeria months after kidnapping

Gunmen have released some of the children kidnapped from a school in northern Nigeria back in May, some of whom were as young as five years old, the school's head teacher said late Thursday.

Abubakar Garba Alhassan told The Associated Press that the freed students were on their way to the state capital, Minna, but added he could not confirm the exact number freed.

Authorities have said that 136 children were abducted along with several teachers when gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Niger state. Other preschoolers were left behind as they could not keep pace when the gunmen hurriedly moved those abducted into the forest.

Alhassan did not provide details of their release, but parents of the students have over the past weeks struggled to raise ransoms demanded by their abductors. There was no immediate comment from police of the Niger governor's office.

The release, though, came a day after local media quoted one parent as saying six of the children had died in captivity.

More than 1,000 students have been forcibly taken from their schools during those attacks, according to an Associated Press tally of figures previously confirmed by the police. Although most of those kidnapped have been released, at least 200 are still held by their abductors.

The government has been unable to halt the spate of abductions for ransom. As a result, many schools have been forced to close due to the concerns about the kidnapping risk.

After one abduction at a university in Kaduna state earlier this year, gunmen demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom. They killed five other students to compel the students' parents to raise the money, and later released 14 others.

CBC

Related story: Bandits release 15 students after parents pay ransom

Nigeria approves Sinopharm COVID vaccine, expects 7.7 mln doses

Nigeria has recently approved China's Sinopharm (1099.HK) vaccine against COVID-19, the head of the country's primary healthcare agency said on Tuesday.

Nigeria has been allocated 7.7 million doses of the vaccine through the COVAX scheme aimed at providing vaccines to developing countries.

Dr. Faisal Shuaib, head of Nigeria's National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, did not say when the Sinopharm doses would arrive or be administered.

Cases are rising in Nigeria with daily new infections increasing 10 fold from levels seen in July, according to a Reuters tally.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with some 200 million people, has vaccinated only a small fraction of them, largely due to lack of supply. So far, some 2 million people, or 1% of the population, have received one dose of vaccine while fewer than 1 million have received two.

The rollout of vaccines, which had been halted on July 9 because supplies had run out after a first phase, resumed on Aug. 16. read more

During the first phase, Nigeria used doses of AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) vaccine received through COVAX. It has since received supplies of Moderna's (MRNA.O) vaccine donated by the United States, which are being used for the second phase.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) shots purchased by Nigeria via an African Union scheme are also expected to be used.

Nigeria has recorded 187,588 cases of COVID-19 and 2,276 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to official data, although the figures could be much higher given that only 2.7 million samples have been tested. 

Reuters 

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Officers killed in attack on Nigeria’s elite military academy

Gunmen have attacked Nigeria’s elite military academy, killing two officers and kidnapping another in a brazen assault on a symbol of the armed forces.

The raid on Tuesday on the Nigerian Defence Academy, the country’s main officer training school, is a major blow for a military already struggling with an armed uprising and heavily armed criminal gangs.

“The security architecture of the Nigerian Defence Academy was compromised early this morning by unknown gunmen,” said Major Bashir Muhammad Jajira, spokesman for the academy in the northwestern state of Kaduna.

“We lost two personnel and one was abducted.”

Various army units and security agencies were pursuing the attackers and trying to rescue the kidnap victim, Jajira said.

The high-security base, located just outside the state capital Kaduna, trains Nigerian officers and also cadets from other African militaries.

No group claimed responsibility, but Nigeria is facing a threat from rebels and large criminal gangs that raid villages, steal cattle and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom.

Attacks and kidnappings have surged in recent months, especially in north-central and northwest Nigeria, partly driven by economic hardship linked to disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and by the impunity enjoyed by most perpetrators.

Kaduna state, located north of the federal capital Abuja, has been the scene of mass abductions at schools and other acts of violence against communities, along with other states such as Niger, Zamfara and Katsina.

The Nigerian government has said it is winning the battle against the criminals it describes as bandits.

However, many Nigerians have stopped travelling through rural areas for fear of being abducted, many pupils have dropped out of school, and many parents are driven to desperate measures to raise ransoms to have their kidnapped children freed.

Al Jazeera

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Video - Nigeria looking to dominate the 2021 FIBA AFROBASKET

In just three day's time, Africa's premier basketball tournament, the Afrobasket- will kick off in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. 16 top nations from around Africa will take part in the two-week competition. Olympic Games finalists and the tournament's top team, D'Tigers from Nigeria, head to Kigali with one mission- to claim the title and assert themselves as the number one ranked men's basketball team on the continent. Here's CGTN's Deji Badmus with more.

Bandits release 15 students after parents pay ransom

Bandits have released 15 more students kidnapped last month from a Baptist school in northwest Nigeria, officials said.

School administrator Reverend John Hayab told Reuters news agency on Sunday that parents had raised and paid an undisclosed ransom to free the students, who were among more than 100 taken on July 5 from the Bethel Baptist High School.

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

Hayab had previously said the abductors were seeking 1 million naira ($2,430) per student.

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

“We still have 65 more of our students with the bandits and we are working to see they can be freed,” Hayab told the AFP news agency on Sunday.

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

The Bethel abduction was part of a string of kidnappings by armed gangs known locally as bandits who have long terrorised northwest and central Nigeria, looting, stealing cattle and kidnapping for ransom.

About 1,000 students have been kidnapped since December after gangs started to target schools and colleges. Most have been released after negotiations.

But many hostages remain captive, including more than 136 children abducted in June from an Islamic seminary in Tegina in central Niger State, four of whom have died in captivity.

On Friday, the gangs asked the seminary to send clothing for the schoolchildren who have been in the same clothes for months, according to one of the parents.

“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 pupils of an Islamic seminary were also seized by motorcycle-riding attackers in Katsina State, the second such incident in as many months.

President Muhammadu Buhari in February called on state governments to stop paying bandits, and Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai publicly refuses to pay.

But desperate parents and communities often raise and pay ransoms themselves.

Al Jazeera

Related story: Kidnapped Nigeria Chibok girl free after seven years