(Editor’s note: This post was updated to correct information about the government’s involvement in the case)

3/24/2025 Nigeria — Sixteen children who were removed illegally five years ago from the Du Merci orphanage remain in custody by the Kano State government despite a court order to release them. Kano State authorities have illegally held the children since they were removed from the orphanage.

A court settlement mandated the Kano State Ministry of Women, Children, and Disabled Affairs to release the children on March 19. Professor Solomon Tarfa and his wife Mercy, who run the orphanage, remain empty-handed following what seems to be another government stall tactic. A gracious Kano State High Court 12 judge helped facilitate the settlement.

However, the commissioner for Women, Children, and Disabled Affairs announced on March 20 that the children’s release will be postponed “until the Attorney General of Kano State returns from Mecca in two weeks.” Tarfa has been in a legal battle with government officials since the children were removed from the couple’s orphanage in December 2019.

Tarfa and Mercy founded Du Merci Orphanage in 1996. For more than two decades, the couple rescued abandoned children with the mission “to glorify God by ministering to orphans and vulnerable children by meeting their mental, physical, spiritual, and social needs.”

Officials from Kano State Government raided the Christian orphanage on Christmas Day in 2019. Police officers and authorities from the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and other Related Matters (NAPTIP) confiscated 29 children — 13 were later returned — and moved them to government-run facilities. Professor Tarfa was detained and imprisoned on alleged charges of kidnapping and abduction.

While in government custody, authorities split the children up, including siblings, and forced them to recite Arabic, study Islam, and attend prayers in a mosque. Since the children had Christian names, the authorities gave them Muslim names.

In June 2021, Tarfa went before the Kano High Court and was acquitted of kidnapping and abduction charges. However, a day before the trial was set to end, the prosecution presented forgery charges in connection with Du Merci’s official registration document.

Although Tarfa received the registration document from the government, the prosecution accused his document of being fake as it did not have a proper serial number. Professor Tarfa was found guilty and remained in prison.

In April 2022, Tarfa appealed the forged document ruling, and almost a year later, the Court of Appeals acquitted Tarfa of all charges.

Today, Tarfa wants the Kano State government to be held accountable and return the remaining children. In addition, the orphanage was demolished under former Kaduna State Governor El Rufai.

International Christian Concern (ICC) calls for the remaining children wrongly detained by the Kano State government to be released and continues to pray for them. We pray that Nigerian authorities will recognize their wrongdoings, release the children, and pay Tarfa and his wife the reparations they deserve.

To read more news stories, visit the ICC Newsroom. For interviews, please email [email protected].