From May 2023 to April 2024, more than two million people were kidnapped in Nigeria. The National Bureau of Statistics, citing data from Nigeria's security services, reported that their families paid a ransom of $1.42 billion to the kidnappers.
According to the report, 91 percent of kidnappings for ransom and other cases are related to political, criminal or terrorist motives.
In Nigeria, the violence is most prevalent in the north-western and central states, where about five thousand armed groups operate in the forests and have turned kidnapping for ransom into a lucrative business. Armed youth groups are taking advantage of the country's economic crisis. One of the consequences is the underfunding of the police and its absence in rural areas, where most of the violence occurs.
Last year, 2 million people were kidnapped in Nigeria.
This report was published a few days after a group of armed men abducted more than 50 women in the town of Kakin Dawa in the north-west of Zamfara state. According to witnesses, bandits went door to door with automatic weapons and dragged women out of their homes.
Last March, armed bandits kidnapped more than 130 students in the northwestern city of Kuriga.
Kidnapping in Nigeria
Kidnapping in Nigeria is not only carried out by ordinary bandits, but also by the Islamist group Boko Haram, which gained notoriety in 2014 when it kidnapped 276 students from a girls' school in Chibok, in the northeastern state of Borno. Some of the girls were never released and most of them were married against their will to the group's fighters.
Lagos, Nigeria is one of the largest and most populous cities in Africa Shutterstock
A December report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics also revealed that over 600,000 people had died “due to insecurity” in the past twelve months. Nigerians. According to the data published by the NBS, “seven out of ten households reported murders to the police, 33% of households answered that the murderer was an unknown person, and 23.4% confirmed that the murderer was a family member.”
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