hello and welcome the president of
nigeria muhammadu buhari
has welcomed the release of 279
schoolgirls abducted by gunmen last week
the governor of zamfara state said he'd
negotiated with the kidnappers
and come to an arrangement to address
some of their grievances
but that no ransom had been paid the
girls appear
unharmed although some have complained
about being forced to walk for hours
without rest
so let's have a listen to one of those
girls who was abducted she spoke about
her ordeal
most of us got injured on our feet and
we could not continue
trekking so the captors said they would
shoot
anybody who did not continue to walk we
walked across the river and they hid us
and they let us sleep under shrubs in a
forest
we can join our correspondent there
ishaq khalid ishaq relief of course
the girls have been released and seem
unharmed but what do we know about the
negotiations
that took place in order to get them
freed
well at the moment there are no details
about
the negotiations but the governor of
zamford state where the incident
happened
told the bbc that they negotiated with
the
gunman and no ransom was paid but they
used or they
they you know negotiated through
repentant armed criminal gang members
those who were in the kidnapping
business before and then they repented
under a
an amnesty program with the government
of course the authorities rarely admit
that ransom is paid whenever there are
abductions and have been speaking to
some of the parents of these
girls they've been telling me that
they're extremely happy that they're
back
many of them told me that the last four
or five days
have been that of uncertainty and one
thing that they're called
you know unanimous about is that all of
them say that they are willing to
send their children back to school
despite what happened
but they are calling on the authorities
to make sure that security is provided
for schools across
the country especially in those areas
where insecurity is quite endemic
that's good to hear that they're
confident about sending their goals back
to school
ishaq but do we know if there was a
specific group that was actually
responsible for this mass kidnapping
well basically there's no specific
identification of a group but what we
know is that these
guns are not a single organized group
in that region in northwestern nigeria
but there are pockets of
armed men who have been kidnapping
people basically for ransom
in that region in the northwest of the
country but in the northeast of nigeria
there is this group boko haram which has
been waiting on insurgency for more than
10 years now
it kidnapped students also in the past
but in this case
it appears there are armed men who are
looking for
ransom but the government said that no
ransom was paid
remember they were abducted on friday
from their boarding school the armed men
broke into the school as the students
slept and then they carried some of them
many of course managed to escape but
many are
also calling on the authorities to
ensure that security is provided given
that this kind of abductions
are likely to have huge impact on
education in nigeria which is the
country with the highest
number of out-of-school children in the
world and that particular region where
the children have been kidnapped
in nigeria is far behind other regions
when
when we're talking about education in
the country
thanks so much for joining us with that
from abuja and great to know
the girls appear unharmed they are well
and are looking forward to going back to
school