Trials begin for more than 1,600 Boko Haram suspects in Nigeria

Fresh fears as over 90 Nigerian schoolgirls go missing after Boko Haram attack

Witnesses say Boko Haram militants have returned at least 91 girls who were abducted from their Nigeria school a month ago, but not without issuing an ominous warning to the girls' parents. As terrified residents emerged from their homes, the extremists said “this is a warning to you all”, resident Ba’ana Musa told the Associated Press. STRINGER/Reuters

Boko Haram Islamic extremists brought back nearly all of the 110 girls they had kidnapped from a boarding school last month, dropping them off in the middle of the night Wednesday with a warning: “Don’t ever put your daughters in school again.”

Several of the girls interviewed by The Associated Press said they had been travelling for days before the convoy of vehicles arrived in the centre of the town of Dapchi around 2 a.m. In the local Hausa language, Boko Haram translates as "Western education is forbidden." Nigeria’s government said 101 of the 110 schoolgirls, most of them Muslim, had been confirmed freed and that the number “would be updated after the remaining ones have been documented.”

“No ransoms were paid,” the information minister, Lai Mohammed, said in a statement. Information and Culture Minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed said in a statement that the Nigerian government had agreed with Boko Haram on a "non-violent approach" to the girls' release, resulting in a group of militants returning them in a vehicle convoy. The girls were released “through back-channel efforts and with the help of some friends of the country, and it was unconditional,” Information Minister Lai Mohammed told journalists in the capital, Abuja. “When I get there we will do a headcount to see if all of them have been released,” said Bashir Manzo, whose 16-year-old daughter was among those kidnapped during the February 19 attack. The freed girls and their relatives said five girls died in captivity and one was still held by the group. The kidnapping on Feb. 19 of the girls, aged 11-19, was the biggest mass abduction since Boko Haram took more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014 – a case that triggered international outrage. Boko Haram militants abducted 276 girls, and about 100 of them have never returned. Some girls were forced to marry their captors, and many had children fathered by the militants. Residents who had fled upon hearing that Boko Haram was headed their way watched from hiding as dozens of girls descended from the vehicles apparently unharmed. As with the released Chibok schoolgirls, “they will be quarantined and be counselled before they go back to their schools.”

Their release came a day after an Amnesty International report accused the Nigerian military of failing to heed several warnings of the imminent attack last month. Nigeria's military dismissed an Amnesty International report that claimed security forces were warned several times ahead of the mass abduction last month as "outright falsehood." Open this photo in gallery Some of the newly released Dapchi schoolgirls are pictured in Jumbam village, Yobe State, Nigeria, on March 21, 2018. The Dapchi abduction has piled pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 promising to crack down on Boko Haram's 5-year-old insurgency and could face the voters again next year.
Boko Haram releases most of the 110 Nigerian schoolgirls it had kidnapped in February 2018, and warns against sending them back to school.