More than 300 Nigerianschoolboys were released on Thursday after being abducted in an attack claimed by Boko Haram, officials said, although it was unclear if any moreremained with their captors, reports AFP.
The assault last Friday on a rural school in Kankara, Katsina state innorthwest Nigeria, was initially blamed on criminal gangs who have terrorisedthe region for years.
But on Tuesday Boko Haram, the brutal jihadist group behind the abductionof 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014, claimed responsibility for the raid.
After a six-day ordeal, local officials said the boys had been released.
“344 are now with the security agencies and will be moved to Katsina thisnight,” state governor Aminu Bello Masari said.
In an interview with state channel NTA, the governor added “I think wehave recovered most of the boys, it’s not all of them.”
Those who were released, “will be given proper medical attention and carebefore being reunited with their families,” he added.
“This is a huge relief to the entire country & international community,”President MuhammaduBuhari said on Twitter. It remained unclear, however, if all the abducted schoolboys had beenreleased, amid ongoing uncertainty over the number taken in the first place. In a video released by Boko Haram Thursday, a distraught teenager said hewas among 520 students kidnapped.
“No one can give the exact number of the children,” a security source toldAFP Thursday, saying the schoolboys were left in the forest after negotiations with the government.
“The children are being gathered in the town of Tsafe in Zamfara state andnearby Yankara in Katsina state.”
“The actual number of freed children will only be known after a head countwhen they arrive (in the state capital) Katsina. Any figures given are a conjecture,” the same source added.
Sources had previously told AFP that the raid was carried out by a well-known criminal in the region, AwwalunDaudawa, in collaboration with IdiMinorti and Dankarami, two other crime chiefs with strong local followings, acting on behalf of Boko Haram.
Experts recently warned that jihadists — operating in the northeast of thecountry, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from where Friday’s attack occurred –were attempting to forge an alliance with criminal gangs in the northwest.
President Buhari’s official spokesman GarbaShehu said on Twitter “thenorthwest now presents a challenge which his administration is determined todeal with.”
“It is unfortunate that the bandits and terrorists continue to get weaponseven under the circumstances of the border closure. We are going to dare them.”
Many parents of the missing students in Kankara said they had long fearedan attack, given escalating violence in the region.
“Our children told us armed men would come up to the school fence but theynever breached the fence… until last Friday,” Hauwa’uIsah, mother of anabducted child said.
Around 8,000 people have been killed in the northwest since 2011, accordingto the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.
#BringBackOurBoys started trending on social media earlier this week, inreference to a similar hashtag after the Chibok kidnappings.
Small protests to push for the boys’ release took place in Katsina onThursday as Buhari was visiting the state.
“Why we are here today is because we want to tell the federal governmentthat what they are doing is not enough,” protester JamiluAliyuTuranci said. “Mr President has failed us.”
