{"id":195041,"date":"2026-02-15T09:44:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T08:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church"},"modified":"2026-02-15T10:51:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T09:51:49","slug":"nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church","title":{"rendered":"Nine Children Freed After Kidnapping in Benue Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>The nine children abducted during a night vigil at St. John\u2019s Catholic Church in Ojije, Utonkon District, Ado Local Government Area of Benue State, have been freed.<\/p>\n<p>The victims regained their freedom after spending one week in the kidnappers\u2019 den.<\/p>\n<p>The kidnappers had earlier demanded N100 million before reducing the ransom to N30 million.<\/p>\n<p>Their freedom came barely 24 hours after the state governor, Hyacinth Alia, ordered their immediate release.<\/p>\n<p>The victims arrived in the community around 8 p.m. on Saturday to an excited crowd that could not contain its joy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. The nine children abducted during a night vigil at St. John\u2019s Catholic Church in Ojije, Utonkon District, Ado Local Government Area of Benue State, have been freed. The victims regained their freedom after spending one week in the kidnappers\u2019 den. The kidnappers had earlier demanded N100 million before reducing the ransom to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":195040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-195041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nine Children Freed After Kidnapping in Benue Church - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The nine children abducted during a night vigil at St. John\u2019s Catholic Church in Ojije, Utonkon District, Ado Local Gove ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nine Children Freed After Kidnapping in Benue Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The nine children abducted during a night vigil at St. John\u2019s Catholic Church in Ojije, Utonkon District, Ado Local Gove ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-15T08:44:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-15T09:51:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771149057.737775.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Nine Children Freed After Kidnapping in Benue Church\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-15T08:44:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-15T09:51:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\"},\"wordCount\":111,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1771149057.737775.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/nine-children-freed-after-kidnapping-in-benue-church\",\"name\":\"Nine Children Freed After Kidnapping in Benue Church - 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