Seventeen students and a woman freed after operation in north-west of country

Nigeria’s army has rescued 17 students and a woman who were kidnapped in a dawn raid by armed men two weeks ago in north-west Sokoto state, the state governor said.

The attack at Tsangaya school on 9 March came two days after the mass abduction of schoolchildren in Kaduna, also in the north. Those students are still missing.

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The region’s heat index soared to 50C in February, leaving millions battling dangerous temperatures made worse by the climate crisis

• West Africa heatwave was supercharged by climate crisis, study finds

An attribution study this week has confirmed the link between the climate crisis and the intense heatwave in the Gulf of Guinea this year, with the heat index reaching 50C (122F) at times. What is the best way to cope with such high temperatures?

Tarly, a 52-year-old carpenter, has seen his colleagues faint due to the heat in his home suburb of Abobo in Ivory Coast in recent months. “The first thing I do when I wake up is shower. But when I get on the gbakka [a popular urban minibus], I’m already sweating, and it stays that way until the afternoon.”

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High temperatures in February affected millions of people and put further pressure on chocolate prices

A searing heatwave that struck west Africa in February was made 4C hotter and 10 times more likely by human-caused global heating, a study has found.

The heat affected millions of people but the number of early deaths or cases of illness are unknown, due to a lack of reporting.

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Adenrele Sonariwo has opened her Rele gallery in Nigeria, Los Angeles and now Mayfair, to showcase the best African artists

The US-born Nigerian gallerist Adenrele Sonariwo was four years old when a sudden turn of events in 1990 meant her family moved to Africa: her father inherited the role of a Yoruba traditional ruler in south-west Nigeria.

“My name, Adenrele, means ‘the crown is going back home’,” says the 37-year-old, who opened Rele Gallery in Mayfair, London, last month, aimed at showcasing African art to an international audience.

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The Children’s Art Gallery supports young Nigerian artists from low-income families, helping them sell their work around the world and build a better life

On a whitewashed wall at the back of the gallery, seven landscape paintings are on display. The artist, Fiyinfoluwa Adeniji, hopes his collection will sell well. Last year, he made 1m naira ($650) from the sale of two paintings – an impressive achievement for an 11-year-old who first picked up a paintbrush when he was seven.

“I look forward to selling more of my artworks to get a better future, and build a museum when I’m older,” says Adeniji, from Gbagada in Lagos state.

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Two mass abductions were the latest in a series of group kidnappings by gunmen

Nigerian security forces continued to search forests and set up roadblocks in the north-west of the country on Sunday, in an attempt to find hundreds of kidnapped schoolchildren, but observers said combing the woodland expanses could take weeks.

More than 280 children aged between seven and 18 were taken from a school in Kuriga on Thursday in one of the biggest mass-abductions in recent months in Nigeria’s turbulent north west. A further 15 children were taken in another raid on a school in Sokoto on Saturday.

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Attackers force their way into school days after 300 children abducted in different Nigerian state

Gunmen kidnapped at least 15 pupils from a school in Nigeria in a dawn raid on Saturday, days after about 300 children were abducted in another armed raid.

The gunmen forced their way into the school premises in the Sokoto village of Gidan Bakuso, in the country’s north-west, and started firing shots sporadically, waking and causing panic among the pupils, said the school’s owner, Liman Abubakar Bakuso.

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President sends in military after mass abduction from school in north-western state of Kaduna

Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has sent troops to rescue more than 250 children kidnapped by gunmen from a school in the north-west of the country in one of the largest mass abductions in recent years.

The mass kidnapping in Kaduna state was the second in a week in Nigeria, where heavily armed criminal gangs on motorbikes target victims in villages and schools and along highways in search of ransom payments.

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Assailants reportedly surrounded Kuriga school as pupils were starting the day in second abduction in country in less than a week

Gunmen have attacked a school in Nigeria’s north-west region seizing at least 287 students, in the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.

Authorities had said earlier that more than 100 students were taken hostage in the attack. But Sani Abdullahi, the headteacher, however, told Kaduna governor Uba Sani when he visited the town on Thursday that the total number of those missing after a headcount was 287.

“We will ensure that every child will come back. We are working with the security agencies,” the governor told the villagers.

Abductions of students from schools in northern Nigeria are common and have become a source of concern since 2014, when Islamic extremists kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village. In recent years, the abductions have been concentrated in north-western and central regions, where dozens of armed groups often target villagers and travelers for huge ransoms.

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