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The country's government have obtained the freedom of one hundred kidnapped pupils seized by gunmen from a religious school last month, per reports from a United Nations official and local media on Sunday. However, the situation of an additional one hundred and sixty-five students and staff believed to remain in captivity remained unclear.

Context

During November, three hundred and fifteen students and staff were abducted from a co-educational residential school in central Niger state, as the country was gripped by a series of group seizures echoing the notorious 2014 jihadist group abduction of female students in a town in north-east Nigeria.

Approximately 50 got away shortly afterward, resulting in two hundred and sixty-five thought to be in captivity.

The Handover

The one hundred children are scheduled to be released to state authorities on Monday, according to the UN official.

“They are scheduled to be released to state authorities on Monday,” the official told a news agency.

Regional reports also reported that the liberation of 100 children had been secured, but did not provide information on if it was the result of dialogue or a security operation, and no details on the whereabouts of the still-missing individuals.

The freeing of the youngsters was announced to the press by a government spokesperson Sunday Dare.

Response

“For a long time we were hoping and praying for their return, if it is true then it is a cheering event,” said Daniel Atori, spokesman for the local diocese of the religious authority which runs the school.

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

Wider Crisis

Although abductions for money are widespread in the nation as a means for criminals and armed groups to make quick cash, in a spate of mass abductions in last month, many people were seized, placing an critical attention on the country's deteriorating law and order crisis.

The country faces a protracted Islamist militant uprising in the northeastern region, while marauding gangs conduct kidnappings and plunder communities in the northwestern region, and clashes between farmers and herders regarding scarce resources continue in the country’s centre.

Furthermore, armed groups connected to secessionist agendas also haunt the nation's unsettled south-east.

A Dark Legacy

A earliest large-scale abductions that garnered worldwide outrage was in 2014, when about three hundred schoolgirls were abducted from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok by insurgents.

Now, Nigeria’s hostage-taking crisis has “become a organized, profit-seeking industry” that raised around a significant sum between a recent twelve-month period, stated in a recent report by a Lagos-based consultancy.