Kidnappers have released all the girls abducted from a boarding school in the northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara on Friday, the state governor told Al Jazeera.
Bello Matawalle said on Tuesday the students were safe with authorities and no ransom had been paid for their release.
“Today, we have received the children who were under captivity since Friday. I initiated a peace accord which yielded a positive result. No ransom was paid to anyone. I insisted that we were not going to give anything to any of them,” Matawalle told Al Jazeera.
The governor said the students were being taken to a health facility for medical examination.
On Friday, police said 317 girls were abducted in the raid by more than 100 gunmen on the Government Girls Secondary School in remote Jangebe village.
However, Matawalle told Al Jazeera the total number of kidnapped students was 279.
Zamfara state spokesman Sulaiman Tanau Anka told Reuters news agency some of the missing girls had run into the bush at the time of the assault, confirming the number of those kidnapped was 279.
Government officials had been in talks with the kidnappers – known as “bandits” – following Nigeria’s third school attack in less than three months.
Zamfara state police commissioner Abutu Yaro said a government-led peace process had resulted in the girls’ release.
“The Zamfara peace accord remains the backbone of the success we have recorded so far. These children were recovered through dialogue,” he told reporters, adding that more details of the incident and police response would be released later.
Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Zamfara state capital Gusau, said many parents wept when they saw their children.
“There was a huge amount of relief for the parents, students and the state government. Authorities told us it was difficult to secure the release. It took days of negotiations with what the government calls repentant bandits to bring the girls back. Some of the girls are less than 11 years old,” Idris said.
