Hundreds of abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria released
Some of the students who were abducted by gunmen from the Government Girls Secondary School, in Jangebe, northern Nigeria, March 2, 2021.
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A group of 279 girls who were abducted from a boarding school in Zamfara state in the increasingly lawless northwestern Nigeria have been released. Such kidnappings are becoming more common in northern Nigeria with three instances just the last month. Armed “bandits” kidnap for money, or to push for the release of their imprisoned members. The girls, aged 10 and up, appeared in front of the press at the state capitol and were to receive a medical checkup before being returned to their parents.
The release was secured via negotiations between officials and the abductors, but the government denies paying a ransom. Initially, police and the military were trying to rescue the girls, whose abductions caused an international outrage.
The most notorious mass abduction of children in Nigeria was in 2014, when 276 girls were kidnapped by militant group Boko Haram from a school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 of those girls remain missing.
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