Nigeria’s government has announced the rescue of more than 300 kidnapping victims, including 163 people abducted from one village in the country’s west earlier this year.
Kidnapping for ransom has become one of Nigeria’s most pressing security crises. Criminal gangs, jihadists and non-ideological armed groups known as bandits operate with particular freedom in parts of the north and centre where state authority is limited.
In February, suspected jihadists attacked Woro in Kwara state, close to the border with Benin. More than 150 people were killed and roughly the same number were abducted, according to accounts from the area.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu warmly welcomes the successful rescue of 308 Nigerian citizens who were abducted in different attacks in Niger and Kwara states,” presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said.
The victims were found at a site inside the Kainji Lake National Park Forest.
Across Nigeria, vast forests and nature reserves that are often lightly governed have become refuge areas for criminal groups seeking to evade security forces.
Onanuga described the operation as “the largest rescue operation ever carried out” in a single day. The effort involved the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, the military, the Department of State Services intelligence agency and the police.
Scores held since February attack
Suspected jihadists descended on Woro earlier this year after sending the village a letter announcing plans to preach there. When no one attended, residents said the attackers appeared to retaliate.
They set fire to homes, killed more than 165 people and abducted an unknown number of residents, according to accounts given to AFP at the time. Local authorities reported a lower death toll.
Media reports had placed the number of abductees at 176, but Kwara state police said as recently as last Friday that the figure had not been substantiated.
The attack left large parts of the village buried beneath ash and rubble.
Mr Tinubu condemned the assault as a “beastly attack”, sent an army battalion to the troubled region and blamed the Islamist movement Boko Haram, although the name is frequently used as a catch-all term for jihadist groups operating in Nigeria.
Several months earlier, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) had claimed its first attack on Nigerian soil in the state, near Woro.
Abductions have become a lucrative criminal enterprise in Nigeria.
Ransom payments linked to kidnappings totaled about $1.66 million between July 2024 and June 2025, according to figures compiled by Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence.
Over the weekend, gunmen abducted at least 52 people, including children, during an attack on a village and a military base in Zamfara state, in northwest Nigeria.
