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Police free nearly 150 from school in northern Nigeria

Published 19/10/2019, 20:04
Updated 19/10/2019, 20:09
Police free nearly 150 from school in northern Nigeria

Police free nearly 150 from school in northern Nigeria

KADUNA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Police said on Saturday they had

freed nearly 150 students from a purported school in northern

Nigeria that claimed it was teaching the Koran but had instead

subjected them to abuse.

It was the fourth such operation in a month and brings the

total released from religious schools in northern Nigeria to

more than 1,000.

The raid will put more pressure on President Muhammadu

Buhari to take action on loosely regulated Islamic schools

called Almajiris, which experts say teach millions of children

across the mainly Muslim north of the country.

Kaduna state governor Nasir El Rufai ordered the raid on the

Islamic reform school in Rigasa, officials said. The captives

were gathered later at a camp nearby, standing in lines in

maroon uniforms as state officials tended to them.

Unlike the other schools, at least 22 of the 147 released

captives were female, Hafsat Baba, Kaduna's commissioner for

human services told Reuters.

The condition of those released was not immediately clear.

An official told Reuters the school was owned by the same

man who owned one of the schools raided in neighbouring Katsina

state earlier this week and had already been arrested by police.

Those freed from other schools over the past month -

including two this week - were chained to walls, beaten and

sexually molested. At the other raided facilities, some parents thought their

children would be educated and even paid tuition. Other families

sent misbehaving or difficult family members and wards to them

for discipline. Buhari, whose home state is Katsina, said in June that he

planned to ban Almajiris eventually but would not do so right

away.

Buhari's office, in a statement issued on Saturday, said "no

responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence

of the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the

name of rehabilitation of the victims."

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