Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday.⁣⁣

Nigerian army has announced that around 6000 extremists have defected in recent weeks, AP is reporting an increasing number of allegations of atrocities against Tigrayan forces, and we meet the Chadian artist turning bullets into brushstrokes.

Seventy-five children who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria's northwestern state of Zamfara were freed after their abductors came under pressure from a military crackdown, a state official said on Sunday (September 12). Gunmen took the students from the village of Kaya on Sept. 1, the latest in a spate of mass kidnappings from schools across the region. More than 1,100 children have been abducted since December last year. Authorities say heavily armed gangs of bandits, seeking ransom payments, are behind the abductions.

Officials in Nigeria have said the students were freed with the help of several of their captors who had been pressured by a military crackdown to work with authorities.

Exiled Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont "must be brought to justice," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says, a day after the former regional head was arrested in Italy after fleeing Spain.

Nigerian security forces have arrested three men accused of taking part in a mass abduction on Bethel Baptist High School in July. Gunmen kidnapped 121 students who were asleep in their dorm rooms. The attack took place just outside the city of Kaduna in the north-west of the country. One hundred teens have since managed to escape or were freed, but twenty-one are still unaccounted for.

Ariel Henry said he would bring president Jovenel Moise's assassins to justice. The interim PM has been accused of being involved in the killing.

The fundamentalist group, which now rules Afghanistan, put the bodies on display to deter others. The move comes after a Taliban founder said executions and amputations will return.

Gunmen have killed dozens of people in two separate attacks in Nigeria. Villagers in Kaduna and security forces in Sokoto state have fallen victim to suspected islamists and criminal gangs. Also on the show: In an industry dominated by men, we bring you a report on the women workers changing the landscape of the Central African Republic. Finally, we take a look at one of Libya's cultural jewels: Leptis Magna. An archeological site shunned by tourists due to the country's insecurity.

The 2021 Right Livelihood Award, also known as the alternative Nobel Prize, goes to Marthe Wandou, Vladimir Sliwjak, Freda Huson and the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE).

The country said "no one will be spared" in the hunt to find Mohibullah's killers. The police have made a number of arrests tied to the murder of the key Rohingya leader.

Heavily armed gangs have been stepping up raids on schools and villages in northwestern Nigeria, often taking hostages for ransom.