Tears and tight embraces as 100 Nigerian schoolchildren return home after Nov 21 abduction, but at least 150 remain captive with kidnappers.
Newsroom (11/12/2025 Gaudium Press )Tears of relief mixed with quiet sobs filled a school hall late Tuesday as parents in northern Nigeria embraced children they feared they might never see again, nearly three weeks after gunmen stormed a Catholic boarding school and abducted more than 300 students and staff.
Among them was Luka Illaya, whose arms wrapped tightly around one son while the fate of another remained unknown. “It has not been easy for me… But today, in fact, I have a little bit of joy, especially because there is still one abducted,” Illaya told The Associated Press. “But I am now happy with this one that I have gotten.”
The reunion marked the release of 100 students taken from Papiri Secondary School on November 21 in one of the largest mass abductions to strike Africa’s most populous nation in recent years. Fifty others managed to escape in the chaotic hours after the attack, but at least 150 children and staff remain in captivity.
Authorities have provided no details on how the 100 students were freed or whether ransom was paid — a common outcome in Nigeria’s wave of school kidnappings. No group has claimed responsibility.
The Papiri assault came just days after 25 students were seized from a school in neighboring Kebbi state, underscoring the persistent threat facing educational institutions across the country’s northwest and north-central regions.
Reverend Sister Felicia Gyang, the school’s principal, thanked security agencies for their role in the partial rescue while issuing a plea for the rest. “We are pleading that God should give them more strength to be able to rescue the remaining children,” she said.
Analysts note that armed criminal gangs, locally known as “bandits,” increasingly target schools because children represent lucrative ransom opportunities and generate intense media and political pressure. Last month, Pope Leo used his Sunday address from the Vatican to call for the Papiri students’ release.
The crisis echoes the 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok by Boko Haram jihadists, an atrocity that sparked global outrage under the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Since then, at least a dozen similar mass abductions have occurred, with more than 1,799 students taken, according to an Associated Press tally.
President Bola Tinubu weighed in this week on X, urging security forces and state governors to intensify efforts. “Students should no longer be sitting ducks,” he wrote.
For families in Papiri, the partial homecoming offered fleeting comfort amid an unresolved nightmare. As one freed boy clung to his father, hundreds of parents across northwest Nigeria waited — and prayed — for their own turn to hold a child again.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Crux Now
Related Images:
