Boko Haram release 91 abducted Nigerian schoolgirls

Boko Haram Islamists who kidnapped more than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi, northeast Nigeria, just over a month ago have returned the students to the town, two parents told AFP on Wednesday.

Nigeria's information minister said 91 of the 110 schoolgirls had been confirmed freed. The fate of the others was not immediately clear.

The Dapchi kidnapping on February 19 brought back painful memories of a similar abduction in Chibok in April 2014, when more than 200 girls were taken.

Bashir Manzo, who heads a parents' support group in Dapchi, said: "The girls have been brought back. They were brought in nine vehicles and dropped outside the school at about 8am (7am GMT).

"I have the list of the missing girls with me, so I am now heading to the school to take a roll call of the returned girls to determine if any of them is still missing.

"These girls were not accompanied by any security personnel. Their abductors brought them, dropped them outside the school and left, without talking to anyone.

"We will get to know more details from the girls about their predicament while in captivity."

Alhaji Deri, whose daughter was among those kidnapped, supported Manzo's account in a separate phone call, adding: "We are here in the school with the girls."

A senior government source in Abuja confirmed the release but said officials were still trying to verify how many girls had been freed.

One witness in Dapchi told the Associated Press that fighters told residents they had returned the girls "out of pity."

"And don't ever put your daughters in school again," they warned.

Boko Haram translates as "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language.

One source told The Telegraph that it remained to be seen whether the released girls were definitely those taken from Daphchi last month, or part of another group of kidnapped girls. Boko Haram is believed to have at least several hundred in captivity at their camps around north-east Nigeria.

"Are these definitely the Dapchi girls?" the source asked. "So far the parents that have been contacted can't seem to verify that."

The source, who was familiar with previous negotiations to free Boko Haram hostages, also said it was likely that if a handover had been made, then a ransom would have been paid.

The Nigerian government is widely reported to have paid £2m in ransom cash for the release last year of 82 of the 276 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, whose abduction in 2014 sparked the global #bringbackourgirls social media campaign. Five Boko Haram prisoners were also freed as part of the exchange.

"If these are the Dapchi girls, I think we can assume that a hell of a lot of money has been paid for them," the source said.

He said that with elections due next year, President Muhammadu Buhari was under pressure to get the girls back.

"The only way to do that is by paying money - since they were only kidnapped last month, I'm not sure there would have been time to free prisoners as well, which takes longer."

Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war during its nearly nine-year insurgency which has claimed at least 20,000 lives and made more than two million others homeless.

Questions are likely to be raised about the circumstances of the release, particularly if Boko Haram fighters were able to travel in to and out of Dapchi unchallenged.

Yan St-Pierre, a counter-terrorism specialist with the Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin, said the Dapchi girls' release was not without precedent.

Earlier this year, a number of hostages, including university lecturers, were freed.

But he said the latest release was "casual enough to raise a lot of questions, especially about the payment".

"If they did pay, the Nigerian government likely paid a premium to accelerate the release in order to avoid another Chibok," he added.