Police in Nigeria confirmed Monday that 24 students had been kidnapped by gunmen from a university in north-central Kogi State.
An unknown number of armed men abducted the students from Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH) in the Osara area during a raid on their classrooms on Thursday.
The state government put the number of abducted students at nine.
But a police spokesperson in Kogi, Williams Aya, said the force learned of the actual number of students involved after questioning those who were rescued over the weekend.
“It was further revealed by one of the rescued female students that there were about 24 students kidnapped on that fateful day,” on May 9, he told journalists in Lokoja, the state capital.
On Sunday, police announced that 15 of the kidnapped university students had been rescued after a fierce battle between security forces and the armed gang.
The rescue leaves a balance of nine students with the gunmen. Terrorists, bandits and armed gangs frequently attack schools and academic institutions and abduct students in Nigeria