Boko Haram frees hundreds kidnapped in northeast Nigeria

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Boko Haram has freed more than 400 people kidnapped earlier this year from a village in the northeastern state of Borno, a senator and a local youth leader said Sunday.

Kidnappings, often for ransom, have become a key tactic of Boko Haram jihadists in their 17-year-old insurgency against the Nigerian state, mostly concentrated in the northeast.

Samaila Kaigama, president of the Borno South Youth Alliance (BOSYA), said his group “has secured the release of all the 416 women and children abducted from Ngoshe.”

They were released Saturday, Kaigama told journalists.

Mohammed Ali Ndume, a senator from Borno, confirmed the release to AFP.

It was not immediately clear how the victims’ release was secured.

Authorities deny paying ransoms, though analysts say it is common practice, by both the government and victims’ families.

Ndume said he didn’t know the circumstances of the release.

BOSYA, which had established communication channels to act as an intermediary between the abductors and affected families, did not provide details.

Nigeria’s various armed groups, including jihadists, “bandit” gangs and separatists, have created a kidnapping crisis across the country that raised some $1.66 million in ransom payments between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a report by SBM Intelligence, a Lagos-based consultancy.

Ngoshe lies less than 10 kilometres from the Cameroonian border in the Gwoza hills, a Boko Haram stronghold, and has come under repeated attack.

Since erupting in 2009 with Boko Haram’s uprising, Nigeria’s jihadist insurgency, which has spawned multiple armed groups, has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.