Fifteen more students abducted from a Christian boarding school in Kaduna State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt have been released on health grounds after spending 48 days in captivity.
The students were among around 120 kidnapped by gunmen from Bethel Baptist High School in the early hours of 5 July. Twenty-eight hostages were freed on 25 July and others have escaped their captors. Around 65 students are still in the hands of the abductors.
Fifteen Bethel Baptist High School students were released and reunited with their parents on 21 August [Image credit: Olu Ajayi]
“The bandits initially promised to release 40 but later released 15 that are weak and sick,” Rev John Hayab, the state Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), disclosed on Sunday 22 August after the students’ release the previous evening.
He added that the parents had taken the children to hospital for treatment. “Our prayers and hope are for the rest of the children to come home soon,” he said.
