130 children and staff abducted from Nigerian school last month freed 'in time for Christmas'
They are among more than 300 pupils and 12 staff taken from St Mary's Catholic boarding school in Niger State on 21 November.
Monday 22 December 2025 06:07, UK
The remaining 130 schoolchildren and staff abducted by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria last month have been freed.
They are among more than 300 pupils and 12 staff taken from St Mary's Catholic boarding school in Niger State on 21 November.
Fifty children managed to escape at the time, the Christian Association of Nigeria previously said, while the government said on 8 December that it had rescued 100 of those abducted.
Now the last of the pupils have been released, a spokesman for President Bola Tinubu said, bringing a close to one of the country's biggest mass kidnappings in recent years.
"The remaining 130 schoolchildren abducted by terrorists... have now been released," wrote presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga in a post on X.
"They are expected to arrive in Minna on Monday and rejoin their parents for the Christmas celebration.
"The freedom of the schoolchildren followed a military-intelligence driven operation."
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The abduction has fuelled outrage over worsening insecurity in northern Nigeria, where armed gangs frequently target schools for ransom.
School kidnappings surged after Boko Haram militants abducted 276 girls from Chibok in 2014.
Over a decade later, dozens of the girls taken on that occasion remain missing.