GUSAU, Nigeria (AP) – Hundreds of Nigerian girls kidnapped from boarding school in the northwest of the country last week have been released, a state governor said Tuesday, as the West African country faces a wave of school kidnappings.
The girls aged 10 and over, dressed in light blue hijabs and barefoot, packed in the conference room of Government House, Zamfara State. They seemed calm and talked to each other while sitting in long lines while journalists photographed them. They receive a medical check-up before being returned to their parents.
Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle said 279 girls had been released after being kidnapped from Government Girls Junior Secondary School in the city of Jangebe on Friday. The government said last week that 317 had been kidnapped. It was not clear if the higher number was a mistake or if girls were still missing.
“Alhamdulillah! (Praise be to God!) I welcome the announcement of the release of the kidnapped students, ”Matawalle said in a Twitter post early Tuesday. “I recommend all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe.”
Officials said “bandits” were behind the kidnapping, referring to the groups of armed men operating in Zamfara state who kidnap for money or push for the release of their members from prison.
At the time of the attack, a resident told The Associated Press that the gunmen had also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the school.
One of the girls told the AP the night of their kidnapping.
“We were sleeping at night when we suddenly started to hear gunshots. They fired endlessly. We got out of bed and people said we had to run, they are thieves, ”she said. Officials ended the interview before the girl could give her name.
The attackers eventually found her and some of the classmates and held guns to their heads, she said.
“I was really scared of getting shot,” she said, adding that they asked for directions to the staff quarters and the director. “We said we don’t know who she is.”
Nigeria has experienced several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years, the most notorious in 2014 when 276 girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram jihadist rebels from Chibok High School, Borno State. More than 100 of those girls are still missing.
Boko Haram is against Western education and the fighters often target schools. But most attacks in the Northwest are carried out by armed criminal groups without such an ideology.
Police and military have tried to save the girls from Zamfara’s kidnapping, which sparked 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 in all schools in the state.
President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his “overwhelming joy” at the release of the girls.
“I join the families and people of Zamfara State to welcome and celebrate the release of these traumatized female students,” he said in a statement. “Being held in captivity is a painful experience, not only for the victims, but also for their families and for all of us.”
The president called for more vigilance to prevent bandits from carrying out such attacks, but warned that paying money for the release of victims would only result in more assaults.
Ernest Ereke, of the University of Abuja, agreed that ransom would allow criminal groups to buy more weapons and increase their power.
And the Nigerian state still seems too weak to respond, he said.
“It’s a lucrative business in a country where many young people are poor, unemployed and hungry,” he said. “The state, which should confront these criminals, empowers them by always giving in to their dictates. It should be the other way around, that is, the criminals should be afraid of the state, but in this case it is the state that is afraid of criminals. “
“If the state can’t crush them,” he added, “it means something is wrong with the Nigerian state.”
On Saturday, 24 students, six staff and eight family members were released after being kidnapped from Government Science College Kagara, Niger, on February 17. In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a high school in Kankara, northwestern Nigeria, were arrested and later released. The government has said no ransom has been paid for the release of the students.
Olukoya reported from Lagos, Nigeria. AP writer Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal contributed