Schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram freed with warning against education
Almost all of the more than 100 schoolgirls kidnapped from the Nigerian town of Dapchi last month have been brought home after they were released by Boko Haram, according to witnesses.
The survivors said only one of the 110 girls remained captured, while five died in captivity, relatives of the freed girls said.
Umar Hassan, a resident of Dapchi, described the moment the girls were freed. He said many fled upon hearing that Boko Haram insurgents were headed into the town again.
Those who remained saw nine vehicles enter the town and the missing girls get out of the Boko Haram vehicles. As residents emerged from their homes, militants told them “this is a warning to you all”. The group was setting the girls free “out of pity”, the extremists said, according to resident Ba’ana Musa.
They added: “And don’t ever put your daughters in school again.” Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language.
Dapchi residents said the fighters left quickly and without any confrontation. Officials said the militants had not received any money to secure the girls’ freedom.
“No ransoms were paid,” the information minister, Lai Mohammed, said in a statement. The girls were released “through back-channel efforts and with the help of some friends of the country, and it was unconditional”. A decision against military “confrontation” was part of the agreement, he added.
The government said it had confirmed the identities of 101 of the returned schoolgirls and was working to identify the remainder.
Bashir Manzo, whose 16-year-old daughter was among those kidnapped during the 19 February attack, confirmed that his daughter was among those freed. “As I speak to you there is jubilation in Dapchi,” he said. Nigeria’s military has dismissed as “outright falsehood” an Amnesty International report that claimed security forces were warned several times ahead of the schoolgirls’ abduction.
The attack by suspected Boko Haram extremists caused fresh outrage in Africa’s most populous country and reminded many of the group’s abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014.
Amnesty International cited sources including security officials and witnesses who said military and police received at least five calls in the hours before the attack.
The rights group said on Tuesday that no lessons had been learned from Chibok and urged Nigeria’s government to make public its investigation into the new attack in Dapchi town.
Nigeria’s acting director of defence information John Agim said no security force was informed of the mass abduction.
The Dapchi abduction has piled pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 promising to crack down on Boko Haram’s nine-year-old insurgency and could face the voters again next
year. An aide to President Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, wrote on Twitter that the release on Wednesday was “GREAT NEWS”, adding “Thank God for the safe return of our sisters.”