Nigerian Authorities Secure Release of 100 Kidnapped Schoolchildren

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school last month, a UN source and local media said Sunday (December 7, 2025), though the fate of another 165 students and staff thought to remain in captivity remains unclear.

In November 315 students and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger state, as the country buckled under a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the infamous 2014 Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok.

Some 50 escaped shortly afterward, leaving 265 thought to be in captivity

The 100 children are set to be handed over to local government officials in Niger state on Monday (December 9), according to the United Nations source.

“They are going to be handed over to Niger state government tomorrow,” the source told AFP.

Local media also reported that the release of 100 children had been secured, without offering details on whether it was done through negotiation or military force, nor on the fate on the remaining students and staff thought to still be in the kidnappers’ hands.

The freeing of the 100 children was confirmed to AFP by presidential spokesman Sunday Dare.

“We have been praying and waiting for their return, if it is true then it is a cheering news,” said Daniel Atori, spokesman for Bishop Bulus Yohanna of the Kontagora diocese which runs the school.

“However, we are not officially aware and have not been duly notified by the federal government.”

U.S. diplomatic pressure

Though kidnappings for ransom are common in the country as a way for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, a spate of mass abductions in November saw hundreds taken and put an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim security situation.

The country faces a long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast, while armed “bandit” gangs conduct kidnappings and loot villages in the northwest, and farmers and herders clash in the country’s centre over dwindling land and resources.

On a smaller scale, armed groups linked to separatist movements also haunt the country’s restive southeast.

The wave of kidnappings came as Nigeria faced a diplomatic offensive from the United States, where President Donald Trump has alleged that mass killings of Christians have amounted to a “genocide” and threatened to intervene militarily.

The Nigerian government and independent analysts have rejected that framing, which has long been used by the Christian right in the United States and Europe.

One of the first mass kidnappings that drew international attention was in 2014, when nearly 300 girls were snatched from their boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok by Boko Haram jihadists.

A decade later, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom crisis has “consolidated into a structured, profit-seeking industry” that raised some $1.66 million between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a recent report by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.