MINNA, Nigeria – A total of 100 of the schoolchildren abducted from a Nigerian Catholic school last month and released over the weekend were hosted at a government-organized ceremony on Monday, many of them looking lost but relieved.

Details surrounding their release were not made public and the government has not said if any ransom – common in such abductions – was paid.

At least 303 schoolchildren were seized in Niger state together with 12 of their teachers when gunmen attacked St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri community on Nov. 21. Fifty escaped in the hours that followed and at least 150 are still held, together with the teachers.

The freed schoolchildren arrived at the Niger Government House in the state capital of Minna in several buses accompanied by military trucks. They

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