279 girls kidnapped from school released in Nigeria

The 279 young students kidnapped last week from a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria were released early Tuesday morning, according to the Governor of the State of Zamfara, Bello Matawalle, who added that "repentant bandits" collaborated in their release.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his "overwhelming joy" via Twitter after the girls were taken to an auditorium at the government headquarters in Gusau, the state capital, in several minibuses.

"I join the families and people of Zamfara to receive and celebrate the liberation of these traumatized students," the spokesman for the federal Executive, Garba Shehu, said in a statement.

The 279 female students from the Jangebe Government Secondary School of Sciences were kidnapped at dawn last Friday, although at first the police announced that it was 317. Although the details of the release have not been disclosed, in Nigeria the He suspects that the authorities of certain northern states, Zamfara among them, negotiate and pay ransom to the armed groups that carry out this type of kidnapping, which encourages this criminal practice.

On Friday, President Buhari urged regional authorities to "review their policies of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles" and warned them that this policy could backfire.

Governor Matawalle defended his management and assured this Tuesday at a press conference that "repentant bandits" collaborated in the release of the 279 girls.

"These repentants work for us, for the Government and for security," he commented.

Meanwhile, President Buhari said via Twitter that they are working "hard to end these grim and heartbreaking incidents."

"The military and the police will continue to persecute the kidnappers and they need the support of the communities in terms of information to nip their criminal plans in the bud," Buhari said.

• Armed men kidnap 42 people in Nigeria, mostly high school students

This has been the third mass kidnapping in two months in the north and central-west of Nigeria and all of them ended with the release of the hostages.

The first took place in Kankara, Katsina State, in December, when 344 male students were forcibly taken away by gunmen.

A subsequent negotiation led to his release a few days later.

The second occurred on February 17 at the Kagara Institute of Sciences, in the state of Niger, with the abduction of 38 people, including 24 students, teachers and their families.

This weekend they returned home after another negotiation.

Attack on a UN base in Borno

On the other hand, the jihadist group Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) carried out an attack on Monday against a United Nations base in the town of Dikwa, in the state of Borno, in the northeast of the country, where they are about 25 humanitarian workers, security sources told the agency France Press.

The Nigerian Army has sent troops and air assets to try to repel the attack, which takes place some 90 kilometers from Maiduguri in a city that has already been threatened several times in recent months.