Hundreds of 'abused' captives freed from Nigeria Islamic school

Police in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna have rescued more than 300 male students from an Islamic school where many had been tortured and sexually abused, a police spokesman said Friday.

Officers raided a building in the Rigasa area city on Thursday where the victims including adults and minors were kept in "the most debasing and inhuman conditions in the name of teaching them the Koran and reforming them", Kaduna state police spokesman Yakubu Sabo told AFP.

"We found around 100 students including children as young as nine, in chains stuffed in a small room, all in the name of reforming them and making them responsible persons," Sabo said.

The school which has been operating for a decade, enrolled students brought by their families to learn the Koran and be rehabilitated from drug abuse and other illnesses, police said.

The proprietor of the school and six staff were arrested during the raid.

Many of the rescued students bore scars on their backs and serious injuries, police said.

"The victims were abused. Some of them said they were sodomised by their teachers," Sabo stated.

Police had been tipped off by complaints from local residents who became suspicious of what was happening inside the school.

During the raid on the school, police said they found a "torture chamber" where students were chained, hung and beaten.

One inmate quoted by Nigerian media described horrific conditions and treatment at the facility.

"I have spent three months here with chains on my legs," Bello Hamza said, adding that he was meant to be in South Africa studying for his Masters degree.

"This is supposed to be an Islamic centre, but trying to run away from here attracts severe punishment; they tie people and hang them to the ceiling for that."