The schoolgirls abducted on Friday by armed men who raided their state in Nigeria’s northwest Zamfara State have been released, the police said.
Yusuf Idris, a spokesman for the regional governor Bello Matawalle, stated on Tuesday that all 279 girls had been safely returned and were all accounted for.
The girls arrived in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the Zamfara government’s statehouse, they were dressed in identical pastel hijabs.
Idris said they were in a “good condition” but some of them had open sores on their feet and were given medical treatment.
A number of the girls recounted what they went through in hands of the kidnappers. “Most of us got injured on our feet and we could not continue trekking, their captors said they will shoot anybody who did not continue to walk,” Umma Abubakar told reporters that gathered in the state house on Tuesday.
“We walked across a river and they hid us and let us sleep under shrubs in a forest.”
Officials had originally said 317 students were taken from the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe, but Idris said that number was not correct.
The abduction is the latest in a string of similar kidnapping cases in Nigeria. At least 42 people were abducted from a state-run school last month and were released later, more than 300 schoolboys were abducted and later freed in December.
The armed men took the girls while they were raiding a state-run school in Zamfara State, northwest Nigeria.
Kidnapping innocent people for ransom is rife in some parts of Nigeria and has become a security challenge. State governors regularly pay ransoms to secure the safety of victims but rarely admit to doing so.
Idris said that ransom was not paid for the release of the girls, telling CNN that the kidnapped schoolgirls were freed after the “repentant bandits” acted as intermediaries to negotiate their release. “They said they got a fair treatment from the kidnappers. They were given food but they did not have a place to sleep, no bed or mattress and they had to walk barefooted. They said it was their worst experience in life,” he added.
President Muhammadu Buhari recently discussed with the state governors to review “their policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles,” saying the policy “could backfire with potentially disastrous consequences.” Buhari also urged state governors to work hard to keep their schools.