Kano, Nigeria, Sept 13 (AFP/APP):Nigerian gunmen have freed dozens of schoolchildren kidnapped this month in northwest Zamfara State, the local government said, following an army offensive on criminal gangs.
Nigerian troops also came under attack in Zamfara at the weekend after an armed group raided a military base there killing 12 security officials, while gunmen stormed a jail in another central state and freed more than 200 inmates.
Security forces began operations in Zamfara a week ago against heavily armed criminal groups known locally as bandits, who are blamed for a series of mass abductions in schools across Nigeria’s northwest this year.
Officials also shut down telecoms across the state to disrupt bandit communications as part of the offensive after more than 70 students and some teachers were snatched from the Kaya school in Zamfara on September 1.
The students were freed on Sunday after nearly a fortnight in captivity.
“A total of 75 hostages taken from the Government Junior Secondary School Kaya were released on Sunday evening,” the local government source said. “They looked robust and unharmed.”
A video released by Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle’s office showed him greeting busloads of students in the night and asking them if they had been harmed.
A dozen girls in yellow headscarves and robes smiled and laughed from inside one minibus.
According to security sources and the local source, the captors had released them in exchange for safe passage out of the forest as the army had surrounded their camp.
The telecom shutdown had helped troops reach the bandit camp without giving away operations, the local government source said.
“The enclave of the bandits was put under siege by security forces and they agreed to release the hostages in exchange for safe passage,” the source said. “The mission was to safely rescue the hostages and the bandits released them unharmed.”
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