Overview
- About 130 children were handed to Niger State authorities after security escorts brought six vans to the state government headquarters.
- Information Minister Mohammed Idris said no one from the St. Mary boarding school attack remains in captivity.
- A UN source said the group would be transferred to Minna and noted that several people initially counted as missing had escaped during the assault and returned home.
- Initial tallies varied, with the Christian Association of Nigeria citing 315 abducted, and an AFP reporter observed that many of the children appeared between four and ten years old.
- Analysts attribute the operation to profit‑driven "bandit" gangs and suggest a ransom may have been paid, as the case unfolded during a wider wave of mass kidnappings that led President Bola Tinubu to declare a national security emergency.