Supporters urged authorities to rescue hundreds of abducted schoolchildren in northwestern Katsina state, Nigeria, on December 17.
Photo:
kola sulaimon / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Last Friday, more than 300 schoolchildren abducted by gunmen from their boarding school in northwestern Nigeria were handed over to government security agencies on Thursday, Nigerian officials said, causing outbursts of relief and joy to the nation. populated by Africa after fears that they would become long-term hostages of jihadist militants.
Shortly after 8pm on Thursday evening, Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari announced in a television interview that 344 of the boys had been handed over to state authorities in the forest of neighboring Zamfara State, in addition. one hundred miles from his school in Katsina State.
The released hostages would be taken to Katsina for immediate medical attention and would likely arrive around midnight, he said.
Other local officials said the boys would meet with President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday.
The jihadist group Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, saying on Tuesday it had confiscated students from the Kankara Government High School of Science to punish them for “non-Islamic practices”.
Hours before the governor’s announcement on Thursday, Boko Haram released a video intended to show dozens of schoolchildren. In the big six-minute video, the hostages said some of their classmates had died during their captivity and called on the government to negotiate their release.
Many of the details about the kidnapping, in a remote agricultural area with poor communication, remain murky, including the true account of how many schoolchildren were taken.
Neither Masari nor the other state governors who hailed the release offered details of the deal to secure his release.
Teenagers Binta Umma and Maimuna Musa were abducted by Boko Haram in Madagali, Nigeria, in 2016. They were forced to marry and sent to die on a suicide mission. In this video, the girls tell the story of their survival. Photo by Jonathan Torgovnik for The Wall Street Journal (originally published on July 26, 2019)
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