MAIDUGURI: Nearly 300 students and staff abducted by gunmen from a school in northern Nigeria this month have been released unharmed, the office of the governor of the state of Kaduna said on Sunday, days before a deadline to pay a $690,000 ransom.

The kidnapping of 287 students on March 7 in Kuriga, a dusty town in northwestern Kaduna state, was the first mass abduction in Africa’s most populous nation since 2021 when more than 150 students were taken from a high school in Kaduna.

A security source said the students were rescued in a forest in neighbouring Zamfara state and were being escorted by the army to the Kaduna capital for medical tests before being reunited with their families.

Abductions at Nigerian schools were first carried out by Boko Haram group, which seized 276 students from a girls’ school in Chibok in northeastern Borno State a decade ago.

Some of the girls have never been released.

Since then the tactic has been widely adopted by criminal gangs without ideological affiliation. Kaduna governor Uba Sani said the country’s National Security Adviser coordinated the release of the Kuriga schoolchildren.

He did not provide further details.

Gunmen kidnap at least 87 in Nigeria’s Kaduna state

“The Nigerian Army also deserves special commendation for showing that, with courage, determination and commitment, criminal elements can be degraded and security restored in our communities,” Sani said.

The gunmen last week demanded a total of 1 billion naira ($690,000) for release of the missing children and staff.

The government had said it would not pay any ransom.

The practice was outlawed in 2022.

But kidnappings by criminal gangs demanding ransoms have become an almost daily occurrence, especially in northern Nigeria, tearing apart families and communities that have to pool savings to pay ransoms, often forcing them to sell land, cattle and grain to secure the release of their loved ones.