By Garba Muhammad, Bosun Yakusak

KADUNA, Nigeria (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 neighboring 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 center.

“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 center.

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.

Source: Reuters