“They took us into the woods, we walked for two days without anything to eat and they beat us,” 14-year-old Murtala Sale told CNN.
“Some [of us] felt sick because we hadn’t eaten for the past two days, they picked out the sick and fed them, ”he added.
The children, many with blankets and covered in cloth, arrived in high-security buses before disembarking and walking barefoot past rows of palm trees into the building named after Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari.
The boys sat in silence in front of microphones in a theater while Masari spoke to the press.
“I will also use this opportunity to commend and thank the efforts of the entire security apparatus,” he said. “To the parents, I think we should thank Allah for His mercy, we never gave up hope.”
It was a momentous day for the state and the boys, he added, suggesting the kidnapping should be part of their ‘history’ and ‘journey into adulthood’.
A 13-year-old boy named Jamilu Suleiman said the kidnappers took the boys to a forest where they hiked for days.
“They usually give small children guns and sticks to beat us, just to show their price and meet them. They gave us bread, a single groundnut cake all day long,” he added.
Ashiru Malumfashi, a father of one of the kidnapped children, said he was traumatized by the kidnapping and the condition of the children.
“But the way the government has expressed concern over the issue, we thank them and hope we won’t see this happen again.”
“We can’t quantify the degree of trauma we’ve experienced,” another parent told CNN from outside the state house. “My son’s name is Ali Buhari … I am not sending him back, I am not returning him [to school]. ”
Masari’s spokesman, Abdu Labaran, told CNN on Thursday that Boko Haram was not involved, but that the boys were kidnapped by bandits posing as the Islamist terror group.
CNN has not been able to independently verify this.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari hailed the news in a statement on Twitter, saying, “This is a tremendous relief for the entire country and the international community.”
Buhari also asked citizens to be “patient and fair” to the government amid fierce criticism of the country’s ongoing security challenges.
Masari has rejected these reports, saying instead that “local bandits” were “mimicking” his speech.
UNICEF, the UN organization responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children, said children in Nigeria are far too often the “target of an attack”.
“Attacks on educational facilities are a serious violation of the rights of the child,” Nigeria’s representative Peter Hawkins said in a statement Friday. “This incident is a disturbing reminder of the heavy toll that violence is taking on civilians in northwestern Nigeria, including children.”
While kidnapping for ransom by criminal elements is increasingly common, kidnapping of this magnitude is unheard of in the state of Katsina. It recalls the brutal kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok in 2014 by Shekau’s group. More than 100 of those girls never returned home.