Some of 300 kidnapped Nigerian students escape

The students escaped between Friday and Saturday and have since been reunited with their parents, CAN’s chair Bishop Bulus Yohanna said in a statement on November 23.

About 253 children and 12 staff members were still with the kidnappers, added Bishop Yohana, who is also the proprietor of the school.

Gunmen kidnapped students and teachers from St Mary’s school in the north-west of the country on Friday, the latest in a spate of school attacks that has forced the Nigerian government to shut 47 secondary boarding schools. The latest attack came after gunmen last week stormed a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi state, abducting 25 girls.

The number of boys and girls – aged between eight and 18 years – kidnapped from St Mary’s is almost half the school’s student population of 629.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu cancelled international engagements, including attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to handle the crisis.

On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called for the release of the hostages, saying “I feel great pain above all for the many boys and girls taken, and for their anguished families”.

“I send a fervent appeal,” Pope Leo said, “that the hostages be released immediately.”

“I exhort the competent authorities to take appropriate and timely decisions to ensure their release.

“Let us pray for these, our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said, “and let us pray that – always and everywhere – schools and churches be places of safety and hope.”

The Pope also called for the release of clerics taken hostage in Cameroon last week.

For years, heavily armed criminal gangs have been killing thousands and conducting kidnappings for ransom in rural areas of northwest and central Nigeria, where there is little state presence.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but bandit gangs seeking ransom payments often target schools in rural areas where security is weak. Gangs have camps in a vast forest straddling several states in the west.

Although bandits have no ideological leanings and are motivated by financial gain, their increasing alliance with jihadists from the north-east has been a source of concern for authorities and security analysts.

FULL STORY

Fifty pupils escape after mass kidnapping in Nigeria, bishop says (The Guardian)

Security fears rise in Nigeria after more than 300 schoolchildren kidnapped (The Guardian)

Pope Leo XIV appeals for release of hostages in Nigeria, Cameroon (CruxNow)