CSW can confirm that all of the remaining students abducted by terrorists at St Marys Catholic School in Papiri, Niger State, on 21 November were released, along with their teachers.

There were early discrepancies in the number of abductees.

News of the release of 230 remaining abductees was initially broken on 21 December by a presidential aide⁠ in a post on X. However, following initial reports that a total of 315 children and teachers had been abducted, CSW sources who visited the school confirmed that several of the older children who escaped as the assailants were rounding up younger ones from their dormitories had fled to their homes, and parents were initially reluctant to notify the school of their children’s safety. Consequently, the final number of abductees was 230, inclusive of the 12 teachers.  

The presidential spokesman who broke the news of the releases attributed the hostages’ return to ‘a military-intelligence driven operation.’ However, there is still no clarity on terms for the releases, or if any kidnappers were apprehended.

As Christmas Day approaches, attacks on Christian communities have continued occur across the nation, and particularly in central Nigeria.

On 20 December a video emerged of over 20 disheveled members of the First Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Aiyetoro Kiri, Kogi State, who were abducted on 14 December, correcting earlier suggestions that 13 people had been kidnapped. In the video, the abductees, who include young children and the elderly, plead for the Federal and Kogi State governments to come to their aid.

On 19 December four young Christians were killed, six were injured and one later died of his injuries following a militia attack on wedding celebrations in the Bundu-Kahugu community in Lere LGA, Kaduna State, that occurred at around 11:45 pm. Welas Yahaya, 25, a farmer, commercial driver and father of two;  19-year-old student Apollos Emmanuel; 15-year-old high school student  Ignition Sunday; apprentice furniture maker Nehemiah Jonathan, 20,  and Samuel Yusuf, 23, died while defending their community, and preventing the assailants from abducting any residents, burning homes or pillaging.

While the youth were later commended by the military, who arrived at the village the following day, an eyewitness contended that ‘all desperate calls to a military post about 4 kilometres away did not get any response during the entire period of the invasion,’ which lasted around one hour.

On 21 December, 12 miners who were  killed in a militia attack at a mining site in the Fan district of Barkin Ladi LGA of Plateau State were buried in a mass grave, following the release of their bodies from the Nerad Mortuary in Bisichi. Earlier, on 17 December, at least 16 people were killed, and an unknown number were abducted in a targeted attack by militia men on Fan. The area is home to Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo, Regional Chair of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN), who speaks out consistently on local and international media about the mass killings that have been occurring in the state since 2010.  Four of the victims were children aged between four and 17.

Additionally, on 13 December militia men had attacked the Karfa community in Plateau State, killing COCIN church leader Rev Gabriel Dikut and attempting to abduct his wife, but were forced to release her when local youth pursued them.

On 15 December Fulani assailants attacked internally displaced persons (IDPs) as they returned to the Udei community in Guma LGA, Benue State, after fetching firewood at Tse-Nyamkume village. One man was killed and several women were tortured before being released. Two days earlier, two travellers of Tiv ethnicity and a security operative who was escorting them had died in an ambush on the Ajimaka Road.

In a communique issued on 19 December, concerned individuals and NGOs had called, among other things, for ‘security measures to protect communities, churches and worshippers as citizens travel for the Christmas festivities across the country’ and for ‘the welfare and protection of displaced Persons (IDPs) and Internally Displaced Communities (IDCs) in the Middle-Belt and across all parts of Nigeria at this Christmas and beyond.’

Also on 19 December Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, declared that ‘bandits, militias, armed gangs, armed robbers, violent cults, forest-based armed groups, and foreign-linked mercenaries’ will be ‘regarded as terrorists’ under a new security framework to be rolled out by his administration: ‘We will go after all those who perpetrate violence for political or sectarian ends, along with those who finance and facilitate their evil schemes.’

CSW’s CEO Scot Bower said: ‘CSW is relieved that every pupil and teacher who was abducted from St Mary’s Catholic School in Niger state has been released unharmed; however, we remain concerned by the plight of the abducted ECWA church members in Kogi, who include very small children, and of members of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Ejiba Town, also in Kogi State, who have been held in forests for almost three weeks. CSW echoes the appeal for relevant State and Federal authorities to redouble efforts to secure their freedom, and the release of others in every state who remain in the hands of armed non-state actors whose activities are finally recognised as amounting to terrorism. We also reiterate the call for security measures to be put in place to ensure protection for churches, Christian communities, and particularly, for vulnerable IDPs over the festive season.’