Nigeria says 308 kidnap victims rescued

Nigeria's government said Wednesday that security forces rescued 308 citizens who had been abducted in different attacks in Niger and Kwara states.

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu welcomed the operation. He said 163 of those rescued were from Woro village in Kwara state and 145 were from Niger State.

The victims were rescued from a location in the Kainji Lake National Park Forest, Onanuga said. He described it as “the largest rescue operation ever carried out” in a single day.

In February, suspected jihadists attacked Woro, near Nigeria's border with Benin. Residents told AFP at the time that the attackers killed more than 150 people, burned houses and kidnapped an unknown number of people. Local authorities gave a lower death toll.

Media reports had put the number kidnapped from Woro at 176, though Kwara state police said as recently as Friday that the figure was unsubstantiated.

Tinubu condemned the Woro attack and deployed an army battalion to the region. He blamed the Islamist movement Boko Haram, though the name is often used generically for jihadist groups in Nigeria.

A few months before the Woro attack, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, known as JNIM, claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil in the state near Woro.

Kidnapping for ransom by criminal groups, jihadists and gangs known locally as bandits has become a major crisis in Nigeria, especially in northern and central areas with limited state presence. Sprawling forests and reserves across the country have become hideouts for criminal groups.