Authorities in Nigeria say they have freed nearly 150 students including 22 females from another purported Koranic school in the northern Kaduna state.

This was the fourth such operation in a month and brings to more than 1,000 the number of people released from religious schools, also serving as rehabilitation centres for children with behavioural problems, in northern Nigeria.

The condition of those freed was not immediately clear, but the police in Kaduna said some of the captives had been chained to the walls, beaten and sexually molested.

Similar abuses had been reported in other facilities over the past month.

One such school was discovered in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari’s home town, last week.

Those freed there included children as young as seven years old.

Rabiu Umar, who was among those freed in Daura, told the BBC that he was “treated like an animal”

Source: BBC