Nigeria School Attack: Hundreds of boys return home after abduction ordeal

More than 300 schoolboys have been reunited with their families a week after they were abducted from their school in northwestern Nigeria.

The boys reached Katsina, the state capital of the same name, by bus, where they were met by President Muhammad Buhari.

Seemingly boring, some were still wearing their school uniforms, while others were holding gray blankets.

State authorities now say the children were abducted by local bandits.

The jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram claimed to have carried out large-scale kidnappings, but some experts suspected it was done well outside their normal operational space.

According to Governor Aminu Belo Masari, 344 boys were released but others are missing.

He was abducted on December 11 in an attack on a school in Kankara city.

Surrounded by armed police, the boys walked from the bus to a government building in a single file to meet President Buhari and the governor. They were also due to undergo a medical examination.

The parents were happy to see their sons again. One mother told Reuters news agency, “I don’t believe what I heard until the neighbors were right to inform me.”

“I’m so excited,” said another mother, who waited anxiously with her other parents after seeing her 15-year-old son. “He had to cry. It was a cry of joy when I saw him,” he told the AFP news agency.

One boy told a TV station that the group was given bread and cassava during their captivity and went cold. He said he was “really happy” to be back in Katzina.

Addressing the released children, Governor Masari said: “You suffered physically, mentally and emotionally, but I can assure you that we have suffered more and your parents have suffered more.”

Earlier he told the media: “I think we’ve got most of the boys back – that’s not all.”

The government insists no ransom was paid but the boys were released after negotiations with the kidnappers.

Zamfara State Governor Belo Matawale, in whose state the boys were released, told the BBC that three separate talks had taken place before the students’ freedom was secured.

He was released on Thursday evening in the town of Tsfe in Zamfara, officials said.

Mr Matawal told the BBC Hausa that the kidnappers had raised various complaints during the talks.

The governor said one of his complaints is about how people kill their animals and how various vigilant units disturb them. He added that the government had promised to look into the complaints of the kidnappers.

Conflicts between pastoralist and farming communities are common in Nigeria’s central and northwestern states, says the BBC’s Nduka Orginmo in Lagos.

Both groups have been fighting for decades, but deadly clashes have escalated in recent years as farming communities and pastoralists have maintained armed vigilance, especially in northwestern Nigeria.

A spokesman for Governor Masari, Abdul Labara, told the BBC the boys had been captured by bandits.

“It was not Boko Haram,” he said. “The local dunters we know about were responsible. These are the people we know very well. I met some of their leaders. That’s why the umbrella organization of the pastoralists’ association was used in their contacts. This umbrella body of animal breeders. “

Witnesses say armed men attacked a gravel school last Friday evening. Many students jumped the school fence and when they heard the sound of gunfire.

Some were tracked down by gunmen who tricked them into believing they were security personnel, and the students fled. Once these students were surrounded they were admitted to a nearby forest by armed men.

On Thursday, a video of the Boko Haram symbol was released, showing dozens of boys, some of whom looked very young.

One boy said he was abducted by “Abu Shekau’s gang”. Abubakar Shekau, led by Boko Haram, a notorious group for school kidnappings, including one in Chibok in 2014, when about 300 school teenagers were arrested.

The group’s name, located in northeastern Nigeria, loosely translates as “Western education is prohibited.”

Armed attacks and kidnappings are rampant in the north-west, and bandits are often blamed for allowing gangs operating in the area.

Amnesty International says more than 1,100 people have been killed by bandits in the first six months of this year as the government fails to bring the attackers to justice.