"Our Daughters Are Now Safe": About 300 Schoolgirls Kidnapped In Nigeria Released

Nigerian Schoolgirls Released: All 279 Nigerian schoolgirls, who were kidnapped from their boarding school in the north-western state of Zamfara last week are now free and waiting on government premises to be united with their families, Nigerian state government official said.

The Zamfara district governor, Dr Bello Matawalle, tweeted about it. He wrote, "It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity.”

“Our daughters are now safe,” he added.

Earlier, the state authorities had said that 317 girls were abducted by gunmen who raided Government Girls secondary school in Jangebe village. But Bella Matawalle said that 279 girls were abducted and not 317. It was the third school attack in Nigeria in the span of the last three months. The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had demanded their release on Friday.

The gunmen, known as 'bandits' in Nigeria had reportedly been in a controversial deal with the Zamfara district where they had "peace agreements" with the gunmen by offering them money and other amnesties. According to Agence France-Presse, the 'bandits' were contacted via their former comrades in order to release the schoolgirls.

Just last week, a student was murdered by a gunman at night in a boarding school in the North-Central Nigerian state of Niger. The unidentified gunman then 27 students and a total of 42 people. Those hostages are yet to be freed. In December last year, a similar incident took place when 300 boys from a school in Kankara were kidnapped. They were later released. Before that, 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok and many of them have still not been found.