All kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls released

GUSAU, Nigeria－Gunmen have freed all 279 girls kidnapped from a boarding school in northwest Nigeria, the governor of Zamfara state said on Tuesday.

Some 317 girls from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in the town of Jangebe were abducted by an armed gang at around 1 am on Friday.

Zamfara state spokesman Sulaiman Tanau Anka said some of the missing girls had run into the bush at the time of the assault, and the number of those kidnapped was 279. All had now been freed, Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle said.

Some journalists in Zamfara's state capital, Gusau, saw dozens of girls in Muslim veils sitting in a hall in a state government building. A few parents arrived later, and one father wept with joy after seeing his daughter.

Most of the girls appeared to be unharmed, but at least a dozen were sent to hospital for treatment. The girls were mostly barefoot, and several had injuries to their feet.

Farida Lawali, 15, told how she and the other girls had been taken to a forest, with the kidnappers carrying those unable to walk.

"They carried the sick ones that cannot move. We were walking on the stones and thorns," she said, sitting in the government house building, covered in a light blue veil.

"They started hitting us with guns so that we could move," she added. "While they were beating them with guns, some of them were crying and moving at the same time."

News of the girls' release brings "overwhelming joy", President Muhammadu Buhari said. "I am pleased that their ordeal has come to a happy end without any incident."

One father, whose seven daughters were among those kidnapped and freed, said the incident would not deter him from schooling his children.

"It's a ploy to deny our girls ...from getting the Western education in which we are far behind," Lawal Abdullahi said. "We should not succumb to blackmail. My advice to government is that they should take immediate precautions to stop further abductions."

On Monday, Zamfara state officials said they were in talks with the kidnappers.

Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed criminal groups, in a trend started by the extremist group Boko Haram, and later its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province.

The government has repeatedly denied paying ransoms. Buhari on Friday urged state governments "to review their policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles, warning that the policy might boomerang disastrously".

Recent abductions

Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years. On Saturday, 24 students, six staff and eight relatives were released after being abducted on Feb 17 from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger state.

In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released. The government said no ransom was paid for the students' release.

The most notorious kidnapping was in April 2014, when 276 girls were abducted by the extremist rebels of Boko Haram from the secondary school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 of those girls are still missing. Boko Haram is opposed to Western education and its fighters often target schools.

Other organized armed groups, locally called bandits, often abduct students for money. The government says large groups of armed men in Zamfara state are known to kidnap for money and to press for the release of their members held in jail.

Experts say if the kidnappings continue to go unpunished, they may continue.

Agencies - Xinhua