More than 300 Nigerian schoolboys who were seized in a mass abduction claimed by Boko Haram experienced their first full day of freedom on Friday after a six-day ordeal.
Looking worn-out and distraught, and most of them without shoes, the boys were brought to the Governor’s office in Katsina, the capital of Katsina State in northwestern Nigeria, after being released late on Thursday.
The assault last Friday on a rural school in Kankara was initially blamed on criminal gangs who have terrorised the region for years. But on Tuesday, Boko Haram, the brutal jihadist group behind the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014, claimed responsibility for the raid.
Local officials said late on Thursday that the boys had been released and would spend the night in the protection of security agents.
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had been left in the forest after negotiations between the authorities and the abductors, but gave no further details.
State Governor Aminu Bello Masari said “344 are now with the security agencies” and were being taken to Katsina. They would be given medical care before being reunited with their families, he said. “This is a huge relief to the entire country & international community,” President Muhammadu Buhari said on Twitter.
It remained unclear, however, if all the abducted schoolboys had been released, amid ongoing uncertainty over the number taken in the first place. In an interview with state channel NTA , the governor added: “I think we have recovered most of the boys, it's not all of them.”
In a video released by Boko Haram on Thursday, a distressed teenager said he was among the 520 students kidnapped. The security source said late on Thursday that the exact number would only be known after a head count in Katsina.
