ABUJA, NIGERIA – In a recent operational breakthrough announced Thursday, Nigeria’s military has recovered nine additional hostages kidnapped by armed gunmen during a raid on an unlicensed orphanage in the country’s north-central region last month. The rescue operation, carried out in a dense forest within Kogi State, brings the total number of freed captives to 22, with one child still unaccounted for following the April 26 attack.
The assault targeted an Islamic orphanage operating without official authorization in a remote outskirts of Lokoja, Kogi’s state capital. When gunmen stormed the facility, they abducted 23 pupils in total. Local security forces managed to free 15 of the captured children immediately after the attack, leaving eight captives still held by the assailants.
Army spokesperson Hassan Abdullahi detailed the outcome of the follow-up mission in a statement dated Wednesday, which was publicly released one day later. According to Abdullahhi, troops intercepted the hostage group in the forest and successfully rescued all nine people held there. “The rescued victims comprised five boys, two girls, and two adult females, believed to be the wives of the proprietor of the orphanage,” the statement read.
The recovery of these nine hostages leaves one remaining pupil unaccounted for, though the official military statement did not explicitly address the outstanding missing person or provide updates on efforts to locate the child. It also did not release information on any casualties among the attacking gunmen or Nigerian security personnel during the rescue operation.
To date, no armed organization has publicly claimed responsibility for the orphanage attack. Security analysts who track kidnapping trends in Nigeria note that targeted assaults on educational and childcare facilities have become a common tactic for criminal armed groups in the region. Schools and orphanages are seen as high-value targets because abductions of children generate widespread public and government attention, creating leverage for groups to demand and extract massive ransom payments. Over recent years, hundreds of students have been kidnapped in coordinated attacks across different regions of Nigeria, creating ongoing national security concerns.