Nigerian police say more than 300 men and boys have been rescued from a building thought to be an Islamic school where they were held against their will, sexually abused, starved and tortured.

Fox News reports, the rescue happened in the northern city of Kaduna. Reuters reported that most of the victims seen by a reporter were children, some in their late teens. One boy, holding a police officer’s hand as he wobbled unsteadily, had visible sores on his back, possibly the result of whipping.

The victims 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 owner and six others who were said to be teachers have been arrested, he added.

Kaduna Police Chief Ali Janga told the BBC that police raided the building after a local tip. He described it as a “house of torture” and a place of slavery.

The building’s owner told police the children had been brought by their families to learn the Koran or because they had problems such as drug addiction. But police said the place was not licensed to run any reformatory or educational program.

The school had been operating for a decade.

Victims at the facility were found padlocked to car hubcaps and had their hands and feet chained. Others bore scars down their backs.

“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.

Local police chief Ali Janga said that despite its claims to be an educational institution, the conditions proved that the facility was “neither a rehab (centre) or an Islamic school”.

Those held there “were used, dehumanised, you can see it yourself”, Janga said. Private Islamic schools are common in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, where government services are often lacking.

‘Severe punishment’

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,” 42-year-old 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.”

Another victim Hassan Yusuf told AFP that he had been sent to the centre two years ago because he had converted to Christianity.

“They keep you incommunicado, you can’t talk to anybody,” the married father said.

Another young man, Hassan Yusuf, told Reuters he had been sent to the school because of concerns over his way of life after studying abroad for a few years.

“They said my lifestyle has changed. I’ve become a Christian, I’ve left the Islamic way of life,” said Yusuf.

Hassan Mohammed, who was the uncle of the three of the freed children, told Reuters he reported the school to the police after officials denied the family contact with the children. The children’s mother had sent them to the school after their father had died.

“I begged, they said no, we can’t see these children until three months. When we went back home … we said the only thing now is we should report this issue to the police station; that is exactly what we did,” said Mohammed.

The rescued children have been moved to a camp at a stadium in Kaduna and the state government is providing for them while police attempt to locate their guardians.

Boys can be seen begging on the streets in cities across largely Muslim northern Nigeria.

They often are sent away by their families for Koranic training but then can be turned out into the streets by their new guardians to beg to earn their keep.

An aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, who comes from the north, earlier this year noted the widespread view that the “almajiri” learning system associated with begging was a “security challenge and a scar on the face of Northern Nigeria.”

But the aide, Garba Shehu, rejected reports that the president had banned the system, saying a ban would need to follow due process and consultation with relevant authorities.

“Indeed, the federal government wants a situation where every child of primary school age is in school rather than begging on the streets during school hours,” he said.

“At the same time, we don’t want to create panic or a backlash.”

‘Shock and horror’

Television footage showed emaciated children being loaded into mini-vans and driven away for processing.

Police said the victims were of varying nationalities and that some had been brought from countries in the region including Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana.

The victims were taken to a camp on the outskirts of Kaduna where their identities were being documented to determine where they came from and to contact their families.

Parents of some of the victims from within the city, contacted by police were “shocked and horrified” when they saw the condition of their children, as they had no idea what was happening inside the school.

Parents were allowed to visit their children every three months, but only in select areas of the premises.

“They were not allowed into the house to see what was happening … the children are only brought to them outside to meet them,” Sabo said.

“All they thought was their children are being taught the Koran and good manners as they looked subdued,” he added.

One of the men allegedly running the facility insisted to local television channels that the centre was simply teaching Islamic studies and that those chained up were “the stubborn ones who attempt to run away”

Parts of this article first appeared on Fox News and is republished here with permission.