[ad_1]
After a six-day ordeal, local officials said the children had been released.
A Boko Haram. Image: AFP.
KANKARA – More than 300 Nigerian schoolchildren were released on Thursday after being abducted in an attack claimed by Boko Haram, authorities said, although it was unclear if more were left with their captors.
Last Friday’s assault on a rural school in Kankara, Katsina state in northwestern Nigeria, was initially attributed to criminal gangs that have terrorized the region for years.
But on Tuesday Boko Haram, the brutal jihadist group behind the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014, claimed responsibility for the raid.
After a six-day ordeal, local officials said the children had been released.
“344 are now with the security agencies and will be transferred to Katsina tonight,” said state governor Aminu Bello Masari.
In an interview with the state channel NTA, the governor added: “I think we have recovered most of the boys, not all.”
Those who were released “will receive adequate medical attention and care before being reunited with their families,” he added.
“It is a great relief to the entire country and the international community,” President Muhammadu Buhari said on Twitter.
However, it was not clear if all the kidnapped schoolchildren had been released, amid constant uncertainty about the number captured in the first place.
In a video posted by Boko Haram on Thursday, a distraught teenager said he was among 520 abducted students.
“No one can give the exact number of children,” a security source told AFP on Thursday, saying the school children stayed in the forest after negotiations with the government.
“The children are being reunited in the city of Tsafe in Zamfara state and nearby Yankara in Katsina state.”
“The actual number of children released will only be known after a count when they arrive (in the state capital) Katsina. The figures given are conjecture,” added the same source.
‘ALLIANCE OF BANDITS AND TERRORISTS’
Sources had previously told AFP that the raid was carried out by a known criminal in the region, Awwalun Daudawa, in collaboration with Idi Minorti and Dankarami, two other crime bosses with strong local supporters, acting on behalf of Boko. Haram.
Experts recently warned that jihadists, operating in the northeast of the country, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from where Friday’s attack occurred, were trying to forge an alliance with criminal gangs in the northwest.
President Buhari’s official spokesman Garba Shehu said on Twitter that “the Northwest now presents a challenge that his administration is determined to face.”
“It is regrettable that bandits and terrorists continue to obtain weapons even in the circumstances of the border closure. We are going to challenge them.”
Many parents of the missing students in Kankara said they had long feared an attack, given the escalation of violence in the region.
“Our children told us that the gunmen would approach the school fence, but they never broke the fence … until last Friday,” said Hauwa’u Isah, mother of a kidnapped child.
About 8,000 people have died in the Northwest since 2011, according to think tank International Crisis Group (ICG).
The BringBackOurBoys hashtag started trending on social media earlier this week, referring to a similar hashtag after the Chibok kidnappings.
Small protests to press for the release of the children took place in Katsina on Thursday when Buhari was visiting the state.
“The reason we are here today is because we want to tell the federal government that what they are doing is not enough,” said protester Jamilu Aliyu Turanci.
“The president has failed us.”
Download the EWN app on your iOS or Android device.
[ad_2]
