Nigerian pupils taken by gunmen in a mass abduction in the north-western town of Kuriga earlier this month have been freed “unharmed”, officials say.
Kaduna state governor Uba Sani said they had been rescued thanks to the courage of the security forces.
The school authorities had said more than 280 children were taken, but the army said 137 hostages had been freed, in an operation took place in the early hours of Sunday morning, days before a ransom deadline.
In previous cases, hostages have been able to flee from their captors as they trek for days to forest hideouts.
A top government official, who asked not to be named, has told BBC Hausa that one of the teachers taken from Kuriga died in captivity. The group was held for 17 days in total.
Kidnap gangs, known as bandits, have seized thousands of people in recent years, especially in the north-west.
Six mass abductions this month have rocked parts of northern Nigeria, despite an overall fall in the number of such attacks over the past year.
The kidnappers had demanded $690,000 (£548,000) for the release of the Kuriga children aged between eight and 15. The government had said it would not pay any ransom.
“This is indeed a day of joy,” Governor Sani said in a statement in which he praised Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu for ensuring that the abducted schoolchildren had been “released unharmed”.
The president, who welcomed the news in a tweet, said it showed the importance of the government and state authorities collaborating “especially on matters of security”.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Edward Buba said 76 girls and 61 boys had been rescued from Zamfara state, which borders Kaduna to the north-west.
A security source told Reuters news agency the students had been freed in a forest and were being taken to Kaduna for medical tests before being allowed to see their families.
The mass abduction occurred on the morning of 7 March during assembly in a compound housing a junior and senior school.
According to witnesses, the pupils were in the assembly ground around 08:30 (07:30 GMT) when dozens of gunmen on motorcycles rode in, eventually taking away 187 students from a secondary school and 125 from the local primary school. It is not clear how many teachers were abducted. Twenty-five students later returned.
