Dispute over rescue of hundreds kidnapped by jihadists

At least 360 people kidnapped by Boko Haram jihadists from a mainly Muslim community in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno state in March have been freed from a remote mountain hideout, reports BBC News. The circumstances of how they were freed are disputed. The army says it had launched an unprecedented intelligence-led operation that had been weeks in the planning and taken the Islamist militants by surprise. But a local group, the Borno South Youth Initiative, says it mediated the unconditional release, putting the number of those freed at 416. Mass abductions by armed groups for ransom have become a common tactic in Nigeria in recent years - and though it is illegal to pay ransoms, it does happen. Boko Haram infamously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok in 2014 - around 90 of whom remain missing. At the time the group forced its captives into sexual slavery, domestic servitude or used them as suicide bombers. But a range of groups across Nigeria now use kidnapping to raise funds, focusing on soft targets such as schools, churches, mosques and remote villages. Analysts say ransom payments by desperate families, intermediaries or, in some cases, state authorities have fuelled the abductions. Military spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Haruna Sani described the assault on Boko Haram's Mandara mountain hideout, ‘under cover of darkness’, as one of the military's ‘most significant hostage rescue operations’ in the north-east.

Full BBC News report