Schoolgirls flee from kidnappers in Nigeria's northwest

Eight Nigerian schoolgirls have escaped from kidnappers in northwest Kaduna State two weeks after they were abducted on their way to school, a government official said.

According to a statement made on April 18 evening by Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna State's internal affairs commissioner, the students of Government Secondary School Awon (Kachia district) were seized on April 3, marking the latest abduction of pupils in the region.

Particularly after a lull in Nigeria’s presidential and gubernatorial elections, held earlier this year, abductions for ransom and intercommunal attacks have been on the rise in the country’s northwest.

The Nigerian government has recently also lifted restrictions on cash bank notes, implemented as part of a cash exchange policy. The restrictions were intended to help curb ransom payment to kidnappers.

"The eight female students... have escaped from the terrorists' den," Aruwan said and without giving their ages.

The government last year branded criminal militia gangs as terrorist organizations, in part to facilitate military action against them.

Aruwan had initially said 10 students of the school, which runs day classes, were taken. He later revised the number to eight.

All the hostages escaped from "a thick forest" on the border between Kaduna and central Niger State and walked for several days. They eventually reached a location where they were given shelter, said Aruwan.

The students, he added, were taken for medical checks before being reunited with their families. Soldiers simultaneously combed the forest for the abductors.

Attack kills 33

Gunmen killed 33 people over the weekend in an attack on a farming village in Kaduna State, where inter-communal herder-farmer violence often flares.

The assailants stormed a village in Zangon Kataf district on April 15. A local government official said they opened fire on residents and torched homes as people tried to flee.

Maintaining security will be a major challenge for President-elect Bola Tinubu, the ruling APC party candidate. He won a presidential ballot in February, marred by technical problems and opposition claims of vote-rigging.

Kaduna is one of several states in northwest and central Nigeria terrorized by gangs who raid villages, kill and abduct residents, loot and burn homes.

Hundreds of students have been kidnapped in the regions over the last two years.

Almost all were released after their families made ransom payments.

There has been concern among officials and analysts about growing ties between bandits motivated by money and militants waging a 14-year-old armed rebellion in Nigeria's northeast.

Last year Kaduna state governor Malam Nasir El-Rufa'i warned that Ansaru and Boko Haram jihadist groups were setting up camps in the state's Birnin Gwari district, from their traditional northeast stronghold.