Nigerian army rescues dozens of children and women kidnapped by Islamic rebels.
The strong Nigerian security force rescued scores of prisoners, mostly women and children, held by extremist Islamist rebels in the country's hard-hit north-eastern region.
Nigeria's Army said Monday night that 25 prisoners were rescued in a "mine clearance operation" by its troops in Borno state's Gwoza district, a hotbed of jihadist violence that Boko Haram has upended lives and livelihoods in the region since 2009. Extremists started an uprising.
Fourteen prisoners were rescued for the first time in Gobara village on Saturday and 11 others were released on Sunday when soldiers stormed a rebel hideout in Gava village, both about 130 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, army spokesman Onyema Nwachukwu said.
Theth Army has released photos of the freed hostages, including small children. Most of them appeared malnourished and wore ragged clothing, suggesting they may have been detained for a long time."All rescued victims are now in military custody and undergoing profiling," Nwachukwu said, describing the operations as part of an "ongoing effort to clear remnants of Boko Haram terrorist enclaves" in Borno and elsewhere. reported that seven members of the "Boko Haram terrorist family" surrendered to troops in a separate operation on Sunday. Among them were three adults and four children.
Boko Haram, whose name loosely translates to “Western education is a sin” in the local Hausa language, launched an insurgency in 2009 to enforce Islamic Sharia law in Nigeria. The extremists are now divided into several factions, the most powerful of which is supported by the Islamic State. In remote areas of north-eastern Nigeria, extremists often target women, children and security forces.
In Nigeria, according to UN agencies, at least 35,000 people have died and 2.1 million have been displaced as a result of extremist violence that has spread to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
A year later, the kidnappers of Nigerian students were arrested.
Nigerian police have arrested two men suspected of being behind the high-profile kidnapping of twenty students in north-western Nigeria in April 2021 and the killing of five of them. "Both pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing five students at Greenfield University in Kahuna state before paying the ransom and releasing the remaining students," police spokesman Olumuyiwa Adejobi said Wednesday night.
The two suspects involved in several kidnapping cases, Amino Laval aka "Kano" and Mortal Dawn aka "", would be brought to justice after investigations were completed, Adejobi said.
In April 2021, gunmen stormed Greenfield University in Kahuna, kidnapping around 20 students and killing a staff member. A few days after the attack, the hostage-takers shot dead five hostages in order to force the families and the authorities to pay the ransom money extorted from them.
The remaining 14 students were released after 40 days of detention. Heavily armed criminal gangs, known as 'thugs', intensify their attacks in northwestern and central Nigeria, looting, kidnapping and killing scores of villagers.
In the past year, the "hooligans" have primarily attacked schools and universities and kidnapped en masse students in order to hold their parents and to blackmail the authorities for ransom. According to UNICEF, around 1,500 students were kidnapped by gunmen in 2021. While most of the young hostages have been released for ransom, some are still being held in the woods, where armed groups are hiding.
Nigeria:
General whereabouts of identified abductees - responsible On Sunday, February 21, the governor of Zamfara state told Channel TV that "Kagara's followers live near Birnin Gwari in Kaduna state.
"It has been almost a week since gunmen attacked the Government Scientific College in Kagara, Niger and kidnapped 42 people.
According to Nigerian officials, those abducted included 27 students, three teachers and other relatives of school staff. After the incident, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security forces to coordinate the rescue operation and condemned the repetition of the incident in Africa's most populous country. According to a statement by Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar Adamu, on Thursday, February 18, the Nigerian army and police conducted a large-scale helicopter surveillance operation to locate the abductees.
In Kagara, desperate families are urging the federal government to intervene to rescue the abductees. Despite the pain, the parents expressed hope for freedom.“He will continue his studies, despite the threat that threatens him.
"I assure you that once he is rescued, he will continue his studies," said Mustapha Dauda, the father of one of the kidnapped students. Central and north-western Nigeria is increasingly becoming a centre for large criminal gangs that raid villages, killing and kidnapping residents after looting and burning houses.
bandits operate from camps in the Rugu forest, which borders the states of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger. Nigerian forces are deployed there, but mass attacks and kidnappings continue. Gangs are driven largely by financial reasons and have no known ideological leanings. But there are fears they could be infiltrated by jihadists fighting in a decades-long conflict that has killed more than 30,000 and has spread to neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
A building collapse in the Nigerian capital has killed two and left many people believed to be stranded.
According to the emergency services, rescue teams were searching for survivors on Thursday after a building collapsed in the Nigerian capital, killing two and leaving many others seemingly trapped.A two-storey building in the populous Garki district of the capital Abuja collapsed in a downpour on Wednesday evening, witnesses said. It served as both a shopping mall and a residence, and some of those trapped were former customers.
Nkechi Isa, a spokesman for the city's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), said 37 people have been recovered alive from the rubble so far. He said the rescue operation will continue until the rubble is dug up.
The crew members used a backhoe and bulldozer to clear away the rubble in search of survivors. A large crowd gathered on the street where the building once stood and cheered as rescue workers evacuated the survivors.
Others awaited news of their missing loved ones. Samuel Japhet narrowly escaped collapse after entering the building to buy drinks. "We bought drinks and left, it wasn't even 30 minutes and it happened," Japhet said."People have been there, all these places, people live here." Building collapses are a daily occurrence in Africa's most populous country. More than a dozen collapses were recorded last year, including in early August when a mosque in northeastern Kaduna state, west of the city, collapsed, killing seven people. Authorities often attribute these disasters to non-compliance with building safety regulations and poor maintenance.