Kidnapped Nigerian Students Freed After Ransom Paid: School, Parent

Parents of students abducted at Bethel Baptist High School pray for their safe return around discarded shoes left behind by the children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, on July 9, 2021. Bosan Yakusak/Reuters

KADUNA, Nigeria–Six students and two officials who were kidnapped last month from a school in Nigeria’s Kaduna state were released after relatives paid ransom money, a school official and parent said on Friday.

Kidnappings by armed men, commonly referred to in Nigeria as “bandits”, have become endemic in northern Nigeria, disrupting the education of hundreds of thousands of children.