Nigerian police on Tuesday made an about-turn, saying that gunmen had abducted dozens of people during Sunday mass in northern Kaduna State after dismissing the initial reports.
A senior Christian clergy and a village head had on Monday told reporters that more than 160 people were snatched from several churches on Sunday.
A security report prepared for the UN said that more than 100 people had been kidnapped at multiple churches.
Photo: Reuters
The chief of police of Kaduna State and two senior government officials had initially issued denials, saying security officers had visited the scene of the alleged crimes and found no proof of any kidnapping, with one of them describing the reports as “totally false.”
However, in a statement late on Tuesday, Nigerian national police spokesman Benjamin Hundeyin said that an “abduction” had occurred and that the force had launched security operations, “with a clear focus on locating and safely rescuing the victims and restoring calm to the area.”
Remarks made by police and other officials from Kaduna State were “intended to prevent unnecessary panic while facts were being confirmed,” Hundeyin said.
Photo: Reuters
“Those remarks, which have since been widely misinterpreted, were not a denial of the incident, but a measured response pending confirmation of details from the field, including the identities and number of those affected,” he said. “Subsequent verification from operational units and intelligence sources has confirmed that the incident did occur.”
A Christian grouping in northern Nigeria has submitted a list of people seized.
“We did produce the names of over 177 people and there is no contest that it was real,” Joseph Hayab, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria for the country’s north, told reporters on Tuesday. “Such a number couldn’t have been taken and you think you can bury it just like that.”
He said there was also evidence of “those who escaped even with injury.”
Sunday’s attacks are the latest in a wave of mass kidnappings in Nigeria.
Gangs — known in Nigeria as “bandits” — frequently carry out mass kidnappings for ransom and loot villages, mainly in the northern and central parts of Africa’s most populous country.
In November last year, armed gangs seized more than 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school in Niger State, with 50 escaping and the rest being released in two batches weeks later.
Roughly evenly split between a mostly Christian south and Muslim-majority north, Nigeria is home to myriad conflicts, which experts say kill Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.
Late last month, the US launched strikes on what it and the Nigerian government said were militants linked to the Islamic State group in northwestern Sokoto State.
Nigeria said it approved the strikes.
Nigeria has meantime struck a US$750,000-per-month deal with a US firm to lobby Washington to help Abuja communicate “its actions to protect ... Christian communities and [maintain] US support in countering west African jihadist groups,” disclosure forms filed with the US Department of Justice showed.
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