Kaduna - Nigerian police rescued more
than 300 people, mostly children, being held in chains in a
building in the northern city of Kaduna, a police spokesman said
on Friday.
Many of the children had metal chains around their ankles,
police said. The spokesman said the building housed an Islamic
school and seven people have been arrested.
"The state government is currently providing food to the
children who are between the ages of five and above," said
Yakubu Sabo, the Kaduna police spokesman.
"We have identified two of the children to have come from
Burkina Faso, while most of them were brought by their parents
from across mostly northern Nigerian states," he added.
He said those arrested were teachers at the school.
Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the
mostly Muslim north of Nigeria - a country which is roughly
evenly split between followers of Christianity and Islam.