GUSAU, Nigeria (AP) – Hundreds of Nigerian girls abducted last week from a boarding school in the northwest of the country were released, a state governor said on Tuesday, while the West African nation faces a series of abductions school.
The girls, aged 10 and over, dressed in light blue and barefoot hijabs, were packed in the Zamfara state conference room, at the Government House. They appeared calm, talking to each other as they stood in long lines as journalists photographed them. They will receive a medical check-up before being returned to their parents.
Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle said 279 girls were released on Friday after they were abducted from government girls’ high school in Jangebe. The government said last week that 317 had been abducted. It was not clear if the larger number was a mistake or if some girls were still missing.
“Alhamdulillah! (God be praised!) I am glad to announce the release of the abducted students, “Matawalle said in a Twitter post early Tuesday. “I command all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us, because our daughters are now safe.”
Officials said the “bandits” were behind the abduction, referring to groups of armed men operating in Zamfara state for kidnapping for money or to press for the release of their members from prison.
At the time of the attack, a resident told The Associated Press that gunmen also attacked a camp and a nearby military checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the school.
One of the girls told the night of their abduction at the AP.
“I was sleeping at night when I suddenly started hearing gunshots. They were shooting endlessly. We got out of our beds and people said we should run away, that they are thieves “, she said. Officials completed the interview before the girl could give her name.
The attackers eventually found her and some classmates and held guns to the head, she said.
“I was really scared not to be shot,” she said, adding that they had asked the staff office and the director for directions. “I said we don’t know who he is.”
Nigeria has seen several such attacks and abductions in recent years, most notably in 2014, when 276 girls were abducted by Boko Haram jihadist rebels at Chibok High School in Borno State. More than 100 of these girls are still missing.
Boko Haram opposes Western education and its fighters often target schools. But most attacks in the Northwest are committed by armed criminal groups without such an ideology.
Police and the army tried to save the girls from the abduction of Zamfara, which caused international outrage. Officials did not say whether a ransom had been paid for their release.
“We have been in talks with the kidnappers since Friday and reached an agreement on Monday,” the governor said, adding that he would provide additional security to all schools in the state.
President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his “overwhelming joy” for the release of the girls.
“I join the families and people of Zamfara State in welcoming and celebrating the release of these traumatized students,” he said in a statement. “Being held captive is an agonizing experience not only for the victims, but also for their families and for all of us.”
The president called for increased vigilance to prevent bandits from carrying out such attacks – but warned that paying money to free victims would only lead to more attacks.
Ernest Ereke, of the University of Abuja, agreed that ransoms would allow criminal groups to buy more weapons and expand their power.
And the Nigerian state seems increasingly weak to respond, he said.
“It is a profitable business in a country where many young people are poor, without jobs and hungry,” he said. “The state, which should confront these criminals, allows them, always respecting their dictates. It should be the other way around, ie criminals should be scared of the state, but in this case, the state is the one who is scared of criminals. ”
“If the state is not able to crush them,” he added, “it means that something is wrong with the Nigerian state.”
On Saturday, 24 students, six employees and eight relatives were released after they were abducted on February 17 from the Kagara Government Scientific College in Niger. In December, more than 300 schoolchildren from a secondary school in Kankara, northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released. The government said no ransom had been paid for the release of the students.
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Olukoya reported from Lagos, Nigeria. AP writer Carley Petesch contributed to Dakar, Senegal