KATSINA, Nigeria (AP) – More than 300 Nigerian schoolboys, released after being kidnapped in an attack on their school last week, have arrived in the capital of Katsina state to celebrate their release.
The boys were abducted on the night of December 11 from Government Science Secondary School boys’ school in Kankara village, Katsina state, northwestern Nigeria.
The students arrived in Katsina, the state capital, on Friday and met with Katsina governor Aminu Bello Masari.
Pale-eyed and stunned by their ordeal, the boys piled up on chairs in a conference room, most still in their school uniforms, some wrapped in gray blankets. The oldest of the boys was sitting in the front row and greeted by officials.
Masari announced their release on Thursday and said 344 boarding school students had been turned over to security officials. Masari told The Associated Press that no ransom was paid to secure the boys’ freedom.
“I think we can say… we recovered most of the boys, if not all,” he said.
The boys at the secondary boarding school will have physical exams in the capital before reuniting with their families, the governor said.
Boko Haram’s jihadist rebels in Nigeria have claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. Leader Abubakar Shekau said they attacked the school because they believe Western education is un-Islamic.
More than 800 students were present at the time of the attack. Hundreds escaped, but more than 330 were believed to be taken.
The government had said it was negotiating with the school’s attackers, who were originally described as bandits. Experts say the attack was likely carried out by local gangs, who have carried out increasingly deadly attacks in northwestern Nigeria this year, collaborating with Boko Haram. Armed bandits, also known for kidnapping for ransom, have killed more than 1,100 people in the region since the beginning of the year, according to Amnesty International.
Friday’s kidnapping was a chilling reminder of Boko Haram’s earlier attacks on schools. In February 2014, 59 boys were murdered when jihadists attacked Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State.
In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from a government boarding school in Chibok in the northeastern state of Borno. About 100 of those girls are still missing.
In 2018, Boko Haram Islamic extremists brought back nearly all 110 girls they had kidnapped from a boarding school in Dapchi and warned, “Never put your daughters in school again.”
While President Muhammadu Buhari hailed the release of the Dapchi schoolgirls as a success during a statement to the public late Thursday, he reiterated that there is still much work to be done.
Amid outrage in the West African nation over insecurity in the north, Buhari noted that his government was successful in securing the release of previously kidnapped students. He added that the government “is well aware of its responsibility to protect the lives and property of the Nigerians”.
“We have a lot of work to do, especially now that we have reopened the borders,” said Buhari, who acknowledged that the northwestern region of Nigeria “poses a problem” that the government is “determined to solve.”
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Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal