The remaining 130 Nigerian schoolchildren abducted in November from a Catholic school in Niger State have been released, President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson said on Sunday, following one of the country’s biggest mass kidnappings of recent years.

“The remaining 130 schoolchildren abducted ⁠by terrorists…have now been released. They are expected to arrive in Minna on Monday and rejoin their parents for the Christmas celebration,” Bayo Onanuga ‌said in a ‍post on X.

“The freedom of ‍the schoolchildren followed a military-intelligence driven ‌operation.”

The students are among more ⁠than 300 pupils and 12 staff seized by gunmen from St Mary’s Catholic boarding school in Papiri village in the early hours of November 21. Fifty of the children managed to escape at the time, while the government said on Dec. 8 that it had rescued 100 of those abducted.

Onanuga said the ⁠total of freed students is now ⁠230.

The abduction caused outrage over worsening insecurity in northern ‌Nigeria, where armed gangs frequently target schools for ransom. School kidnappings surged after Boko Haram militants abducted 276 girls from Chibok in 2014.