• Nigerian police rescued dozens of people, many of them children, from a church.
• They had been told to wait for what they believed would be a divine happening.
• Police raided the church in Ondo State after receiving information that children were being held against their will.

Nigerian police rescued dozens of people, many of them children, from a church where they had been told to wait for what they believed would be a divine happening, according to a police statement.

On Friday, police raided the Whole Bible Believers Church in southwestern Ondo State after receiving information that children were being held against their will.

Seventy-seven people including 26 children were rescued and two church pastors were arrested, Ondo State police spokeswoman Funmilayo Odunlami said.

Police said they had been kept in the church after being told they must wait for Rapture, a belief among some Christians that they will ascend to heaven at the end of the world.

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One of the pastors had “told the members that Rapture will take place in April but later said it has been changed to September”, the statement said.

“Another family who was also around during the rescue said their daughter… dropped out of school due to the strange teachings of the pastor and left home in January.”

Ondo State made headlines last month when gunmen raided a Catholic church with explosives and killed 40 people in a rare attack in the country’s usually calmer southwest region.

Although no group claimed responsibility for the attack, the government believes it was carried out by jihadists from the Islamic State West Africa Province.

Nigerian troops are fighting a 13-year jihadist insurgency in the country’s northeast, which has killed over 40,000 people and displaced two million others.

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