(Photo : Getty Images/Andrew Burton)
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 13: U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY 12th District) speaks at a rally bringing attention to the one year anniversary of the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian school girls on April 13, 2015 in New York City. The terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped more than 220 girls last year, many of whom remain missing.
A Nigerian state governor announced on Tuesday that hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls abducted the previous week from a boarding school in the nation's northwest have been released. The West African nation is currently facing a succession of school kidnappings.
279 Nigerian Girls Freed
The abducted girls were ages 10 and up. They were donned in light blue hijabs and barefoot, packed into the Government House conference room in Zamfara. They seemed calm as they chatted with one another as they sat in long rows while journalists captured them.
President Muhammadu Buhari exhibited "overwhelming joy" at their freedom. Buhari called on the security forces to track their kidnappers. This follows Nigeria reeling from its fourth mass kidnapping in less than three months, reported ENCA.
VIctims remarked how their abductors had beaten and terrorized to shoot them. Earlier reports indicated 317 girls from the Government Girls Science Secondary (GGSS) School in Jangebe, Zamfara state were kidnapped by an armed gang at around 1 AM on Friday, reported News 18.
The victims will receive a medical check-up prior to returning to their parents. According to Matawalle, 279 girls had been released following their abduction from the GGSS.
The governor stated, "I am happy to announce that the girls are free." An AFP reporter witnessed the hundreds of girls wearing hijabs gathered at government premises in the state capital Gusau where Matawalle hosted a reception for them.
According to Zamfara government spokesman Sulaiman Tanau Anka, a number of the missing girls had run into the bush at the time of the assault. Anka clarified 279 schoolgirls were abducted.
A few parents arrived at the location of the freed girls. One father wept with joy upon seeing his daughter.
According to Matawalle, "Alhamdulillah! (God be praised!) It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students. I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe," reported The Epoch Times.
The gunmen, or bandits locally, raided the GGSS in remote Jangebe village on Friday. The governor then also declared the number of those who were kidnapped is 279. No one was reported missing.
Northern Nigerian boarding schools have become targets of armed criminal groups for cluster kidnappings for ransom. This is a trend begun by the jihadist group Boko Haram and continued by its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province. The Zamfara raid was the second such kidnapping in little over a week in the northwest. The northwest is a region increasingly targeted by gangs.
Farida Lawali, 15, recounted how she and the other girls had been transferred to a forest by the abductors. According to Lawali, "They carried the sick ones that cannot move. We were walking in the stones and thorns. They started hitting us with guns so that we could move. While they were beating them with guns, some of them were crying and moving at the same time," reported Reuters.
The "bandits" are groups of armed men who operate in the state of Zamfara and abduct to push for the release of their members from prison or for money.
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