{"id":30928,"date":"2026-04-06T16:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30928"},"modified":"2026-04-06T16:17:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:17:44","slug":"nigerias-army-has-rescued-31-civilians","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigerias-army-has-rescued-31-civilians\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Nigeria\u2019s army has rescued 31 civilians&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nigeria\u2019s army said on Sunday that it had rescued 31 \u200ccivilians who were taken hostage during an attack on a church in northwest Kaduna state, while five people were found dead at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>The army \u2060said the attack had taken place during an Easter church service in Ariko village in the Kachia local government Area.<\/p>\n<p>Troops were in pursuit of the attackers, it added.<\/p>\n<p>The Chairperson of the Christian Association of Nigeria for Kaduna state, \u200cCaleb \u2060Maaji, said that two churches were attacked in Ariko village on Sunday. He said that seven people were killed and an \u2060unknown number taken hostage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFindings are still ongoing,\u201d Maaji told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Northwest Nigeria has struggled for years \u2060with violence, including mass kidnappings for ransom and village raids, with armed groups \u2060operating from vast forest hideouts across the region.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2013Reuters\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27996,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-30928","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The army \u2060said the attack had taken place during an Easter church service in Ariko village in the Kachia local government Area.","published_date":"","news_description":"The army \u2060said the attack had taken place during an Easter church service in Ariko village in the Kachia local government Area.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30929,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30928\/revisions\/30929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}