Nigeria : Gunmen in Nigeria have freed a number of pupils who were kidnapped from an Islamic school in May, according to their head teacher.
Some 136 students from the school in Tegina, Niger state, were seized by gunmen demanding a ransom.
School officials say 15 students escaped in June and a further six died while in captivity.
Mass abductions for ransom have become increasingly common across Nigeria in recent months.
Head teacher Abubakar Alhassan said he could not give an exact number of how many students had been freed, but “none of the pupils are in captivity”.
Last month, the parents and the school had raised funds to free the pupils but the kidnappers told them that it was not enough.
Mr Alhassan said that they then paid more money and even bought motorcycles for those behind the mass abduction to convince them to release the children, the BBC’s Ishaq Khalid reports from the capital, Abuja.
Fati Abdullahi, whose 18-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were taken by the group, told the AFP news agency that her children had been freed.
