The Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, has released a batch of more
than 80 of the Chibok high school girls who were abducted in mid-April
2014.
According SaharaReporters’ source, the release of the 80 abducted school
girls came after further negotiations between the Islamist group and the
President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The 82 girls who just regained their freedom are currently in Banki town
in Borno state awaiting airlift to an unknown destination.
The source added that once the girls are secured in a new location they
would be debriefed, undergo a psycological and medical test and then be
reunited with their families. Also the Britain and the United States on
Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote
northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the
conflict.
The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist
militants were “actively planning” to seize foreign workers in the Bama
local government area of Borno state. Both said in travel advice that the
affected area was “along the Banki-Kumshe axis”, which is near the border
with Cameroon.
The US embassy in Abuja said in a message to its nationals that the report
was “credible”.
Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of women and children, including more
than 200 schoolgirls from the Borno town of Chibok in 2014, which brought
the conflict to world attention. At least 20,000 people have been killed
since 2009.
But abductions of foreigners have been rare. There was a spate of
kidnappings of foreign workers in the wider north from 2011 to 2013,
claimed by a Boko Haram splinter group, Ansaru, which was more
ideologically aligned to Al-Qaeda.
The leader of Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, has been charged with the
abduction and murder of foreign workers, among them an Italian, a Briton,
a German, Greek, Lebanese and Syrians. Most were engineers or construction
workers.
International aid workers now account for the majority of foreign
nationals in northeast Nigeria. Most are based in the Borno state capital,
Maiduguri.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the Lake Chad region require urgent
food aid as a result of the conflict, which has made more than 2.6 million
people homeless and ravaged farmland. AFP visited Banki with other
international media two weeks ago.
Humanitarian agencies operating in the town include the World Food
Programme, International Organization for Migration and other UN bodies.
Banki was liberated from Boko Haram in September 2015 and is currently
home to some 32,000 displaced people in a sprawling, overcrowded camp. The
surrounding area still suffers from frequent Boko Haram attacks on
military convoys, as well as suicide bombings.
Fighters loyal to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who were pushed out
of their camps in the Sambisa Forest area last December, are believed to
be responsible.
The kidnap warning and the threat to humanitarian operations underlines
the fragility of security in northeast Nigeria, despite claims from the
government and military that Boko Haram is a spent force.