{"id":81978,"date":"2026-01-21T10:52:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81978"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:52:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T10:52:53","slug":"police-confirm-mass-abduction-in-kaduna-church-attacks-after-initial-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/21\/police-confirm-mass-abduction-in-kaduna-church-attacks-after-initial-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Confirm Mass Abduction in Kaduna Church Attacks After Initial Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Huldah Shado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Nigeria Police Force has confirmed that armed bandits abducted a large number of Christians during coordinated attacks on churches in Kaduna State, reversing an earlier denial by state security authorities.<br \/>\nThe confirmation was issued late Tuesday, January 20, by the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, in a statement posted on the official X handle of the Nigeria Police Force.<\/p>\n<p>The attacks occurred on Sunday, January 18, in Kurmin Wali, Kajuru Local Government Area, while worshippers were attending church services. Although official figures were not provided, media reports estimate that up to 177 people were abducted. Sky News reported that more than 150 Christians were taken by the assailants.<br \/>\nThe police clarification came about 24 hours after the Kaduna State Police Command dismissed the reports. On Monday, January 19, the Commissioner of Police, Muhammad Rabiu, alongside local government officials, described the reports as false and challenged anyone to provide details of the alleged victims. The Kajuru council chairman, Dauda Madaki, also said security operatives found no evidence of an attack, citing a denial by the village head.<\/p>\n<p>In its statement, the Police Force said the earlier comments were not intended to deny the incident but to manage public reaction while investigations were ongoing. It explained that subsequent verification from operational and intelligence sources confirmed that the abduction did occur.<\/p>\n<p>The police said coordinated security operations have been activated with other agencies to rescue the abducted victims and restore calm in the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Huldah Shado The Nigeria Police Force has confirmed that armed bandits abducted a large number of Christians during coordinated attacks on churches in Kaduna State, reversing an earlier denial by state security authorities. The confirmation was issued late Tuesday, January 20, by the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, in a statement posted on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":81979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1724,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insecurity","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81980,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81978\/revisions\/81980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}