Nigeria: President Buhari to receive 82 Chibok high school girls

The 82 Nigerian high school girls from Chibok, freed Saturday after more than three years of captivity at the hands of the jihadist group Boko Haram, arrived Abuja this Sunday , where they were to be received by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

"These 82 girls from Chibok are now in Abuja," Femi Adesina, spokeswoman for the presidency on Twitter, said they were taken to the presidential residence.
"Welcome to our daughters, our sisters. We are pleased to meet you, "President Abba Kyari's chief of staff said on arrival at the airport from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
They were due to meet with the Head of State on Sunday at 4:00 pm (3:00 pm GMT), but at 6:30 pm, none of the girls had arrived at the presidential villa, where the press was waiting.
These teenage girls are part of the group of 276 girls abducted in their high school by the jihadist group in 2014, which Nigeria commemorated with sadness in mid-April the third anniversary.
Relayed by media from around the world, this mass kidnapping had provoked a wave of indignation that many global celebrities had participated via the #bringbackourgirls hashtag.
The release of these high school girls is a great political victory for Muhammadu Buhari, who, with the fight against Boko Haram, had made it one of the priorities of his mandate.
Sick and weak, the head of state has not attended any council of ministers for a month, making Nigeria doubt his ability to lead the country.
The 82 high school girls who were released on Saturday were exchanged for detained members of Boko Haram, the presidency explained. According to the leaders of the movement, these are three Chadian commanders of the faction headed by Abubakar Shekau.
The girls have become a negotiating weapon in the conflict between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram, not least because of the politicization and international media coverage surrounding their kidnapping.
Amnesty International on Sunday urged the Nigerian authorities to provide adequate psychological support to released high school students and not to extend the traditional military investigation to assess their allegiance to the jihadist group - a common practice when thousands of villagers who lived under Yoke of the group.
Two of them were amputated. One of them on the leg following a bombardment of the Nigerian army on Boko Haram posts, the other on the hand due to an infected wound during her detention, a member of a self defense group explained to AFP.

In October 2016, 21 high school students from Chibok had already regained freedom after negotiations between Boko Haram and the government, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Switzerland.
The ICRC has again provided significant logistical support for the release, according to testimony obtained by AFP.
"Nine ICRC vehicles arrived at Banki by truck Friday night," said a military source based in the locality near the border with Cameroon. "They then took the girls back to Banki at 5:30 pm."
The girls spent the night in the military barracks of Banki, before leaving Sunday morning for Maiduguri (capital of the State of Borno) then Abuja.
After the liberation, there are about 100 high school girls from Chibok in the hands of Boko Haram. Of the 276 adolescent girls aged 12 to 17 years old, 57 had escaped just after the kidnapping and three were subsequently found near the Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram stronghold.
Abubakar Shekau had announced in a propaganda video in August 2016 that some of them had been killed in air raids by the army.
On Christmas Eve, President Buhari had triumphantly announced "the final crush of the terrorists of Boko Haram in their last enclave" of Sambisa, a forest of some 1,300 km2."Boko Haram continues to abduct women, girls, and young boys," Makmid Kamara, Amnesty International's representative for Nigeria, said on the third anniversary of the abduction of the "Chibok girls".

"Unfortunately (...) many parents, many families have given up hope of finding those they love," he wrote.

The particularly bloody conflict with Boko Haram in the Lake Chad area has left more than 20,000 dead and 2.6 million displaced since 2009.

tags : AFP