Negotiations under way in Nigeria to free abducted children

Officials are believed to have made contact with kidnappers through community leaders.

Negotiations are under way between Nigerian officials and the armed gang that kidnapped 42 people, including 27 children from a boarding school in the Kagara district of Niger state, on Wednesday. Heavily armed men in military uniforms raided the Government Science College in Kagara, killing one student and spiriting others into a nearby forest. On Friday, government representatives were in contact “with people holding these students”,  Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja, said.