Abductors free 12 people kidnapped in Nigeria last week

The gang that abducted a group of young women in Nigeria's northeast state of Borno a week ago released the remaining 12 late on Saturday, a local official told AFP.

Their release comes as the country has experienced a surge in abductions over the past two weeks.

"All the 12 were released," Abubakar Mazhinyi, president of the local Askira-Uba council, told AFP, adding that they had been taken to hospital.

"They (abductors) spoke to the parents," he said. "It was the parents that went to the bush."

No ransom paid

Last Saturday, 13 female victims aged between 16 and 23, were kidnapped near their farms in land near a nature reserve.

The gang freed one of them after she told them she was nursing a baby.

No ransom was paid, with the abductors releasing the women because the army was in pursuit, said Mazhinyi.

Borno was the scene of the 2014 kidnapping of nearly 300 girls in Chibok.

Abduction of at least 300 children

Last week armed gangs abducted more than 300 children from a Catholic school in the central-western Niger delta state.

Although some managed to escape, more than 265 children and teachers are still being held.

These abductions have been claimed by bandits.