Negotiations are underway in Nigeria to secure the release of 317 teenage girls kidnapped on Friday from their boarding school in Zamfara state, in the northwest of the country, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Read also: Nigeria: 317 schoolgirls wanted after another mass kidnapping
This is the fourth attack on schools in less than three months in this region of Nigeria, where criminal groups, called "
bandits
", have increased large-scale cattle thefts and have practiced kidnapping for ransom for more than ten years. years.
Zamfara government officials are in contact with the kidnappers to negotiate the release of hostages from a school for girls in Jangebe since the kidnapping.
"
Discussions are taking place with the bandits who detain the girls and we hope for an early outcome
," said on Monday March 1 a local authority official involved in the negotiations, who prefers to remain anonymous.
“
It is a sensitive situation that requires patience and tact, when the lives of hundreds of young girls are at stake,
” he added.
“
The negotiations are advancing.
Once the obstacles are overcome, the girls will be released,
”said a second source.
Zamfara authorities are used to discussing amnesty agreements with the criminal groups with whom they have been negotiating for over a year in exchange for handing over their weapons.
It was Zamfara state officials who negotiated the release last December of 344 boys who had been kidnapped by bandits from their boarding school in neighboring Katsina state.
With each release, the authorities deny paying any ransom to the kidnappers, but this is however little doubt for security experts who fear that this will lead to an increase in kidnappings in these regions plagued by extreme poverty and little or no at all secure.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday evening assured him that he
would not
"
give in to the blackmail
" of the "
bandits
" who are awaiting "
the payment of large ransoms
".
This new mass kidnapping rekindled the memory of Chibok's kidnapping in 2014, when the jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 high school girls, sparking worldwide emotion.
More than a hundred of them are still missing and no one knows how many are still alive.
But these two kidnappings are to be distinguished: the "bandits" act above all for the lure of profit, and not for ideological reasons, even if some have forged links with jihadist groups in the North-East.
