Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has reportedly released 82 Chibok girls, taking the numbers of girls who had been freed or managed to escape to more than 150.
Online medium, Sahara Reporters, was the first to break the news on Saturday, noting that the release of girls came after further negotiations between the Islamist group and President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Sunday Tribune’s enquiries from top military and government sources revealed that there was, indeed, a brokered negotiation between government and the Boko Haram sect, which resulted in the release of some girls.
The sources, however, could not give the actual figure of the girls who regained their freedom.
According to them, the number could be around the quoted figure, noting that more clarifications would be made today.
Sunday Tribune’s attempts to speak with the Nigerian Army’s spokesperson, Brigadier-General S.K. Usman and the Presidency to confirm the release and the actual figure could not yield results as of the time of filing this report.
The released girls, it was learnt, are currently in Banki town in Borno State awaiting airlift to an unknown destination, with Sahara Reporters noting that “once the girls are secured in a new location they would be debriefed, undergo a psychological and medical test and then be reunited with their families.”
Over 250 girls were, in April 2014, kidnapped from a secondary in Chibok town, Borno State, while waiting to write the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, a development that triggered international outcry and solidarity, with attempts by government to free the girls yielding small results.
and then