The Oriire kidnap victims regained their freedom after their captors allegedly abandoned them deep in a forest while fleeing a multi-directional ground assault by a joint security task force, with local vigilantes providing critical intelligence that helped troops navigate the terrain, according to sources who spoke to SaharaReporters.
The children weren’t rescued in a dramatic confrontation. The kidnappers simply ran — and left them behind.
New details emerging from the operation that freed all the pupils, teachers and principal abducted from schools in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State reveal that the hostages were found abandoned deep inside a forest after their captors scattered under sustained military pressure, SaharaReporters has learnt.
A security source familiar with the operation told SaharaReporters that a joint task force had mounted a days-long ground assault, advancing into the forest from multiple directions and engaging suspected kidnappers in a series of firefights. As troops closed in, the criminals broke into smaller groups and fled through different routes — leaving the hostages behind in the process.
“What happened was that while the soldiers were trekking through the forest searching for where the children were being held, they kept encountering some of the kidnappers on different routes and neutralising them,” the source said.
“Initially, they thought the kidnappers would all be together with the children. But as the operation intensified, they discovered that the kidnappers had split into different groups and were fleeing through different routes.”
Local vigilantes proved pivotal to the operation’s success, providing intelligence on the terrain and identifying zones within the forest occupied exclusively by criminal elements.
“The local vigilantes gave them useful information. They told them that anyone found in that section of the forest was most likely part of the criminal network because innocent people don’t operate there. That intelligence helped the security team,” the source disclosed.
Some kidnappers engaged troops in gunfire during the operation while others successfully escaped through alternative routes into the forest.
The account provides a markedly different picture from a straightforward rescue — one where sustained military pressure, local intelligence and the kidnappers’ own panic ultimately delivered the hostages to safety nearly two months after their abduction.
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