Nigerian Forces Rescue More Than 300 Kidnapped Schoolboys

Security forces on Thursday rescued nearly 350 schoolboys who had been kidnapped by suspected Islamist gunmen in northern Nigeria and taken into a vast forest, the governor of Katsina state said.

The abduction last Friday night had been claimed by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in an unverified audio recording.

Gunmen raided the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara town, Katsina state, on motorbikes and carried off the boys in the biggest such incident in the lawless region in recent years.

Governor Aminu Bello Masari said in a televised interview with state channel NTA that a total of 344 boys held in the Rugu Forest in neighboring Zamfara state had been freed.

In the rescue operation, security forces had cordoned off the area where the boys were being held and had been given instructions not to fire a fire a single shot.

"We had already established indirect contact to try to make sure that we secure the release of the children unharmed," Masari said. "We thank God that they took our advice and not a single shot was fired."

The boys were on their way back to Katsina state and would be medically examined and reunited with their families on Friday, Masari said.

The abduction gripped a nation already incensed by widespread insecurity, and evoked memories of Boko Haram's 2014 kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls in the northeastern town of Chibok.