Ben108:
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Ruth Maclean and Isaac Abrak

Boko Haram has released more than 100 of the schoolgirls it abducted last month, returning them to their village in north-east Nigeria.

Waving the black and white flag used by the Islamic State and wearing balaclavas, military fatigues and ammunition belts, members of the group released most of the girls they had abducted in Dapchi early on Wednesday morning.

On 19 February armed militants pretending to be soldiers herded the girls into trucks and escaped. The Nigerian government was initially slow to act but then said it would negotiate with the group for the girls. It has denied any ransoms were paid.

'We are soldiers! We will save you': how Boko Haram tricked Dapchi schoolgirls

Witnesses said the militants pulled up near Dapchi police station on Wednesday and shouted that parents should pick up their daughters. Initially, villagers ran away fearing another attack. But when they realised what was happening, they began to cheer and wave at the militants, chasing after their pickup trucks, some recording videos on their phones.

“Dapchi is full of joy,” said Mohammed Mdada, who saw the girls being whipped as they were driven away a month previously. He said the militants apologised to some of the girls’ parents in their language, Kanuri, and shook their hands before driving off.

“They said that if they knew they were Muslim girls they wouldn’t have abducted them,” Mdada said. “They warned the girls that they should stay away from school and swore that if they came back and found any girl in school, they’d abduct them again and never give them back.”

One of the goals of Boko Haram – which has kidnapped thousands of girls, boys and women, forcing some of them to blow themselves up, killed thousands of others and displaced millions – is to stop children receiving what it perceives as western-style education.

Dapchi school.
Boko Haram has released many of the 110 schoolgirls it abducted from the town of Dapchi, Nigeria, the government said in a statement. Photograph: Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty Images
Usman Mataba, whose niece was among those returned, said she had talked to the militants. “I approached them and they told me that they had brought all the girls except six – that five had died on the day they were taken,” he said. “They said they discovered they were dead when they arrived at their destination, so they buried them.”

Mdada said he had been told the five girls were trampled to death. The sixth had “refused to cooperate” with them, Mataba said.

Amnesty International later said four girls were still missing. Locals said Boko Haram also dropped off a boy who had apparently been kidnapped by accident.

Hafsat Abdullahi phoned the Guardian to say her 16-year-old sister Fatima, who had been taken, had been dropped off in Dapchi. She put her sister on the phone.

“It took us three days to get back to Dapchi,” said Fatima. “We were divided into three groups and flown in planes, and taken over rivers in boats.”

Soon after arriving back in Dapchi, the army told Fatima and her schoolmates to assemble at the village hospital.

The Guardian view on Nigeria and Boko Haram: bring back our girls – again | Editorial

“They took all of them to the hospital, Fatima is in the hospital now,” Hafsat said later, waiting at home to see her sister. “I heard that the chief of staff of the army is here and wants to take the girls with him to Damaturu. I don’t like that – I want her to stay.”

Their parents were not allowed in to see them, and the girls were soon put into vehicles and driven away. Their destination was Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, where they were to meet the president, Muhammadu Buhari.

In the aftermath of the Dapchi attack, Buhari said his government would negotiate with the militants, but in a statement released on Twitter on Wednesday he claimed there had been “backchannel” negotiations and that no ransoms had been paid.

This raises the question of what was offered to secure the girls’ release. The Nigerian government held several Boko Haram commanders who could have been handed over as barter.

Other aspects of the abduction and release remain murky. According to an Amnesty International report, the army and police had been warned that Boko Haram would abduct the girls and made no attempt to stop them.

Focusing on schoolgirl abductions distorts the view of life in Nigeria | Chitra Nagarajan

They also had been warned that they would be brought back on Wednesday morning, according to Dapchi residents, and positioned themselves at the school they had been taken from, thinking that they would be dropped off there.

However, their kidnappers drove them into the centre of the village, close to the police station.

Neither the military nor the police attempted to apprehend the militants, who even stopped to change a tyre before leaving Dapchi, according to Mataba.

Parents of the Chibok girls, kidnapped four years earlier in a neighbouring state to worldwide condemnation, happened to be in Dapchi to commiserate with their counterparts and urge them to be patient.

The Chibok girls were taken before Boko Haram split into several factions, when it was led by Abubakar Shekau, a notorious militant who vowed to “sell them in the market” and who is still believed to have some 100 of the girls in his custody, having traded others for vast sums of money, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/boko-haram-returns-some-of-the-girls-it-kidnapped-last-month

Cyynthialove:
Some of we Christians are just docile when it comes to politics which is very bad.

Funny enough that some uninformed Christians among us see political participation as a sin. Smh.

mekaboy:


It is really a pity. But if the current administration continues beyond 2019, christians will have themselves to blame.

gidgiddy:
Boycott all future elections in the SS/SE!

Dont be a fool! People have been voting in Nigeria since the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's

When una mumu go do?
If voting has not saved or helped anyone in over 60 years, it is not now it will save or help anybody now.

Nigeria is beyond redemption. It can never work as a nation no matter who the political leaders are.The only thing that can save anyone is agitating for self determination

Cyynthialove:


Every Sunday, some christians will be praying for Nigeria, but if you ask them about their PVC and their level of political participation, you won't gt satisfactory response from them. Even the Bible told us that faith without work is dead

Nig Christians need proper orientation.
The worst is that, if you go to some northern States where Christians are majority, Muslim wl be their governor, but you can never see a Christian governor in a Muslim dominated state.

Christians are very docile and weak politically and if something is not done about it, then we are in big trouble.

Meanwhile, the poster below is an Islamic fanatic with a Christian moniker. They are many on this forum. Their mission is to keep deceiving some gullible xtian to keep supporting buhari even when we all know that Buhari"s intention is to unleash terror on Christian population in Nigeria.

mekaboy:


That is an irresponsible strategy. It's just like saying because robbers always come to your house, you should just leave your house open always. You have to take actions to prevent attacks. IPOB boycotted elections in Anambra, did it stop the governor from winning?

bamidelee:

Christians are the problems devilling this country. pastors flying private jets, collect egunje etc
your no can't take you to anywhere if you want to base on religion.
ipob at work

gidgiddy:


And after the Governor of Anambra won, where is Nigeria today? You think that will reduce either the 70% porverty rate or inflation for that matter? Will it stop Herdsmen killings or will it create jobs for the millions of unemployed youths? No it wont. So what is the point of voting if Nigeria does not work? Even if you vote in the Pope to be president of Nigeria, the country still will not work.

So the best thing is to call a failure a failure and go with something else. Anyone voting in Nigeria is just wasting their time. Only self determination can save people, not Nigeria

Clerverly:
Christains Get Your PVC let's Vote The Following Muslim Faithfuls

Atiku Abubarka

Sule Lamido

Kwankwanso

Dakwambo

Ipob yoots are really pigs!

FarahAideed:
I don't subscribe to dividing our votes according to religious lines , if we are to vote out Buhari it has to be in unison and be because of his incompetence and not because he is a Muslim or because we are Christians..Buharis poor leadership is a threat to both Christians and Muslims no religion is spared

mekaboy:


But his decisions are based on religion. What kind of president will agree to releasing all Muslim girls and hold back a Christian girl?

Ladyhippolyta88:
Nigeria is finished no wonder the country is not growing.We vote based on ethnicity and religion not on merit is this what democracy is about?

flokii:
There is no battle boy..

We won't repeat the mistake we made with GEJ where Igbos hijacked his govt. and replaced all Yorubas in DPR, NNPC and other parastatals with Igbos.

GEJ rendered so many Yoruba sons and daughters jobless, gave all our positions out to Igbos thinking we would use "Christian" basis to vote him in 2015.

We're not religious bigots like you lots. Yorubas are far more civilized.

deltaisgreat:
The problem is that our western Christians will still vote for the killer of Christianity in Nigeria. The man who handed all security chief positions to His Northern Muslim faithfuls so that he can accomplish his islamization agenda. He deceived them by just picking a weak , selfish and hypocritical western Christian as running mate. He knows the west are very tribalistic hence can be bought over with a offer of VP. Their men are the General overseas of most big penticostal churches today in the country, so I don't think their actions will affect any other region like they will be affected if the North succeed in islamising the nation. So our problem as Christians in the in the country is the gullible western Christians.

MrHowto:



So he should refuse to accept the release of 107 girls because of 1 girl who happens to be Christian ?


1 girl is not more important than 107 girls.

She will be released too by the grace of God.

MrHowto:



So he should refuse to accept the release of 107 girls because of 1 girl who happens to be Christian ?


1 girl is not more important than 107 girls.

She will be released too by the grace of God.