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Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 100 kidnapped pupils seized by armed men from a religious school last month, per reports from a United Nations official and local media on Sunday. However, the whereabouts of a further 165 hostages believed to remain held captive remained unclear.

Context

In November, three hundred and fifteen individuals were kidnapped from St Mary’s mixed residential school in central a Nigerian state, as the nation buckled under a surge of large-scale kidnappings echoing the well-known 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in a town in north-east Nigeria.

Approximately fifty escaped shortly afterward, resulting in two hundred and sixty-five thought to be still held.

The Release

The one hundred students are set to be handed over to Niger state officials this Monday, stated by the source.

“They are going to be transferred to state authorities tomorrow,” the source informed a news agency.

Local media also reported that the release of the students had been secured, without offering details on whether it was achieved via talks or a security operation, nor on the situation of the still-missing individuals.

The freeing of the students was confirmed to the press by presidential spokesman Sunday Dare.

Response

“For a long time we were anxiously awaiting for their release, if it is true then it is positive development,” said a representative, speaking for Bishop Bulus Yohanna of the Kontagora diocese which manages the institution.

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

Security Situation

While hostage-taking for cash are common in the country as a method for illegal actors to make quick cash, in a spate of mass abductions in November, many people were abducted, casting an uncomfortable spotlight on Nigeria’s already grim law and order crisis.

The nation is grappling with a long-running Islamist militant uprising in the northeastern region, while criminal groups perpetrate kidnappings and plunder communities in the north-west, and clashes between agricultural and pastoral communities over scarce land and resources persist in the middle belt.

Furthermore, armed groups linked to secessionist agendas also haunt the country’s unsettled south-east.

Historical Precedent

A earliest mass kidnappings that drew worldwide outrage was in 2014, when almost three hundred girls were snatched from their school in the north-eastern town of Chibok by the militant group.

Ten years on, Nigeria’s kidnap-for-ransom crisis has “consolidated into a organized, profit-seeking industry” that collected about $1.66 million dollars (£1.24m) between a recent twelve-month period, as per a analysis by a Nigerian research firm.