Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen have attacked a school in northwestern Nigeria and kidnapped 39 students just weeks after a similar mass abduction in the region, authorities said Friday.

The latest kidnapping took place late Thursday night at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, in the Igabi local government area of Kaduna state, police said.

PORT HARCOURT (Nigeria), March 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Nigerian army freed 14 crew members of a Chinese fishing boat from their pirate kidnappers on Saturday after a month in captivity, following a ransom payment, the military said.

The crew of six Chinese, three Indonesians, a Gabon national and four Nigerians were kidnapped in early February when the tuna fishing boat was attacked.

“A ransom of $300,000 was paid before we arrived to rescue them,” and bring them safely to Nigeria, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Yahaya said.

Gusau (Nigeria), Mar 2 (AP-PTI) Hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted last week from a boarding school in the northwestern Zamfara state have been released, the state's governor said Tuesday.

Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle announced that 279 girls have been freed.

GUSAU, Nigeria (AP) — Hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted last week from a boarding school in the northwestern Zamfara state have been released, the state’s governor said Tuesday.

Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle announced that 279 girls have been freed. The government last week said 317 had been kidnapped.

Gunmen abducted the girls from the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town on Friday, in the latest in a series of mass kidnappings of students in the West African nation.

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen kidnapped 317 schoolgirls from the town of Jangebe in northwest Nigeria on Friday, police said, the second such kidnapping in little over a week.

A surge in armed militancy has led to a breakdown of security in the north of Africa’s most populous country, where school kidnappings are becoming endemic.

ABUJA, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian troops killed some Boko Haram militants while retaking a town "lost" to them earlier in the country's northeast region, said a spokesman for the army on Tuesday.

Mohammed Yerima, the army spokesman, told Xinhua that the town of Marte and its surrounding areas in the northern state of Borno were cleared of militants who had laid siege to the region for some days.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian police beat and arrested demonstrators on Saturday as a small group protested over the reopening of the site where activists denouncing police brutality were shot last year in the commercial capital, Lagos, Reuters witnesses said.

Rights group Amnesty International and witnesses have said soldiers opened fire on protesters on Oct. 20, killing at least 12 people at a toll gate in the city’s affluent Lekki district and another area. The military has denied shooting live rounds and the police have denied involvement.

ABUJA, Feb 11 (NNN-XINHUA) – At least 19 fleeing Boko Haram militants were killed in an encounter with the Nigerian military in the northeastern state of Borno, according to security sources.

Five gun trucks belonging to the Boko Haram group were also destroyed during the gunfight in Rann, a town in the Kala Balge local government area of Borno, on Tuesday, said sources who preferred to be anonymous.

ABUJA, Jan 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission has announced the return of 384 Nigerians from the United Arab Emirates.

The returnees are part of the 802 Nigerians stranded in Saudi Arabia that the Nigerian government had promised would be evacuated to Nigeria on Thursday and Friday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs disclosed that the second batch will arrive in the country on Friday and would be received at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, by the ministry’s officials.

GUSAU (Zamfara, Nigeria), Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Emir of Maru in the Nigerian state of Zamfara, Alhaji Abubakar Gado Maigari, has confirmed that 35 people were killed by unidentified gunmen during an attack on five villages in his emirate.

The Emir was briefing Governor Bello Matawalle who paid a sympathy visit to the affected villages.

The villages according to the Emir are Dutsin Gari, Asha-lafiya, Rayau, Munkuru, Mahuta and Talli.