* More than 300 people as young as 5 held captive
* Children manacled with metal chains
* Islamic schools dogged by years of criticism
(Adds victim and relative comments)
By Garba Muhammad and Bosun Yakusak
KADUNA, Nigeria, Sept 27 (Reuters) - More than 300 boys and
men, some as young as five and many in chains and bearing scars
from beatings, have been rescued in a raid on a building that
purported to be an Islamic school in northern Nigeria, police
said on Friday.
Most of the freed captives seen by a Reuters reporter in the
city of Kaduna were children, aged up to their late teens. Some
shuffled with their ankles manacled and others were chained by
their legs to large metal wheels to prevent escape.
One boy, held by the hand by a police officer as he walked
unsteadily, had sores visible on his back that appeared
consistent with injuries inflicted by a whip.
Some children had been brought from neighbouring countries
including Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, police said, while
others had been left by their parents in what they believed to
be an Islamic school or rehabilitation centre.
"This place is neither a rehab or an Islamic school because
you can see it for yourselves," Kaduna state's police
commissioner, Ali Janga, told reporters. "The children gathered
here are from all over the country... some of them were even
chained. They were used, dehumanized, you can see it yourself."
Kaduna police spokesman Yakubu Sabo said seven people who
said they were teachers at the school had been arrested in
Thursday's raid.
"The state government is currently providing food to the
children who are between the ages of five and above," he said.
It was not clear how long the captives had been held there.
RELATIVES SUSPICIOUS
Reports carried by local media said the captives had been
tortured, starved and sexually abused. Reuters was not
immediately able to confirm those details.
One young man, Hassan Yusuf, said he had been sent to the
school because of concerns about his way of life following a few
years studying abroad.
"They said my lifestyle has changed - I've become a
Christian, I've left the Islamic way of life," said Yusuf, who
did not specify the nature of his relationship with the people
who sent him to the centre.
As news of the raid spread, some relatives gathered near the
compound, where a sign over the gate, topped with rolls of
barbed wire, read: "Imam Ahmad Bun Hambal Centre for Islamic
studies".
Hassan Mohammed, told Reuters he was the uncle of three of
the freed children who had been sent to the school by their
mother after their father died. He said he grew suspicious about
what was going on after the family was denied access to them.
"I begged, they said no, we can't see these children until
three months. When we went back home... we said the only thing
now is we should report this issue to the police station, that
is exactly what we did," said Mohammed.
The rescued children have been moved to a temporary camp at
a stadium in Kaduna, and would later be moved to another camp in
a suburb of the city while attempts were made to find their
parents, police said.
SCHOOL SHUTDOWNS?
Islamic schools, known as Almajiris, are common across the
mostly Muslim north of Nigeria - a country that is roughly
evenly split between followers of Christianity and Islam.
Parents in northern Nigeria, the poorest part of a country
in which most people live on less than $2 a day, often opt to
leave their children to board at the schools.
Such schools have for years been dogged by allegations of
abuse and accusations that some children have been forced to beg
on the streets of cities in the north.
Earlier this year, the government of President Muhammadu
Buhari, himself a Muslim, said it planned to eventually ban the
schools, but would not do so immediately.
"Any necessary ban on Almajiri would follow due process and
consultation with relevant authorities," said Buhari's spokesman
Garba Shehu in a statement issued in June.
"The federal government wants a situation where every child
of primary school age is in school rather than begging on the
streets during school hours," the statement said.
A presidency spokesman did not immediately respond to calls
and text messages seeking comment on the raid in Kaduna and
whether it would alter the government's approach to such
schools.
Professor Ishaq Akintola, director of the Nigerian human
rights organisation the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), said
around 10 million children across the north of the country are
educated at Islamic schools.
"Those responsible for abuse, if found guilty, should be
held accountable but these schools should continue because
shutting them down would deprive so many students of an
education," he said.
Akintola said Islamic schools needed funding to train
teachers and improve the buildings.