Abductors free 12 young girls kidnapped in Nigeria

Their release comes as the country has experienced a surge in abductions of young people over the past two weeks.

"All the 12 were released," Abubakar Mazhinyi, president of the local Askira-Uba council, told AFP, adding that they had been taken to hospital.

"They (jihadists) spoke to the parents," he said. "It was the parents that went to the bush."

Last Saturday, 13 Muslim women and girls, aged between 16 and 23 were kidnapped near their farms in land near a nature reserve that has become a hideout for the jihadists.

The gang freed one of them after she told them she was nursing a baby.

No ransom was paid, with the jihadists releasing the women because the army was in pursuit, said Mazhinyi.

Borno state is at the heart of Nigeria's conflict with the jihadists, which started 16 years ago with Boko Haram.

It was the scene of the 2014 kidnapping of nearly 300 girls in Chibok.

While the jihadist threat has diminished, both Boko Haram and rival breakaway Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are still dangerous.

The conflict there has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people and forced more than two million people to flee their homes, according to UN figures.

The violence is not confined to the northeast of the country.

Last week armed gangs seized more than 300 children from a Catholic school in the cenral-western Niger delta state.

Although some managed to escape, more than 265 children and teachers are still being held.

These abductions have been claimed by bandits rather than jihadists.

Nigeria has a history of mass kidnappings, mostly carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments and targeting vulnerable populations in poorly policed rural areas.