Nigerians welcome 130 freed schoolchildren, teachers

Nigerians on Monday got their first look at 130 children and teachers released after being seized in one of the largest mass abductions in the country’s history. Some of the children appeared to be malnourished or in shock as they arrived at a Government ceremony. Police said they were freed Sunday, a month after gunmen stormed their Catholic school in Niger state’s Papiri community in a predawn attack.

Authorities said plans were underway to reunite the children with their families before Christmas. Authorities earlier said 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were seized, and 50 of them escaped in the hours that followed. But on Monday, Niger state Gov Mohammed Bago indicated that 230 had been taken and all had now been released. School kidnappings have come to define insecurity in Africa’s most populous country.

Officials did not say whether a ransom — common in such abductions — had been paid. No group has claimed responsibility, but residents blamed armed gangs that target schools and travellers in kidnappings for ransom across Nigeria’s conflict-battered north. Most of those seized in the attack were aged between 10 and 17, the school said. One of the children released earlier told The Associated Press that gunmen threatened to shoot them during the attack.

Maj Gen Adamu Garba Laka, national coordinator at Nigeria’s Centre for Counter Terrorism, told Monday’s event that Nigeria will work with community leaders to boost safety in high-risk areas. new measures, describing them as a “timely and necessary” step amid intensified Russian attacks. “All infrastructure of Russia’s war must be blocked,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine will synchronize its sanctions with the EU and introduce its own additional measures soon.

 Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov brushed off the EU move, saying that “we consider such unilateral restrictions unlawful”. “At the same time, we have acquired certain immunity from sanctions. We have adapted to living under sanctions,” Peskov said in a conference call                      with reporters. “We will need to analyse the new package in order to minimise negative consequences from it.” The UK has Russia’s spies in its sights  The UK, meanwhile, imposed sanctions on units of Russia’s military intelligence service, GRU.

Also added to the list were 18 officers the UK said helped to plan a bomb attack on a theatre in southern Ukraine in 2022 and to target the family of a former Russian spy who was later poisoned with a nerve agent. Hundreds of civilians sheltering in the theatre in Mariupol were killed in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. “GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said. 

NATO also condemned Russia’s cyberattacks, saying in a statement that “we will respond to these at a time and in a manner of our choosing, in accordance with international law, and in coordination with our international partners including the EU”. Targeting Russian energy interests  The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, had proposed to lower the oil price cap from $60 to $45, which is lower than the market price, to target Russia’s vast energy revenues. The 27 member countries decided to set the price per barrel at just under $48. The EU had hoped to get major international powers in the Group of Seven countries involved in the price cap to broaden the impact, but the Trump administration could not be brought onboard. 

Oil income is the linchpin of Russia’s economy, allowing President Vladimir Putin to pour money into the armed forces without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse. A new import ban was also imposed in an attempt to close a loophole allowing Russia to indirectly export crude oil via a number of non-EU countries. The EU also targeted the Nord Stream pipelines between Russia and Germany to prevent Putin from generating any revenue from them in future, notably by discouraging would-be investors. Russian energy giant Rosneft’s refinery in India was hit as well.