Freed schoolgirls arrive hometown after undergoing treatment in Abuja

The students of Government Girls Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, who were released by Boko Haram on March 21, 2018, are back in the town.

The girls, 104 of them have been in Abuja since their release. They had met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa and underwent medical treatment and counseling.

According to AFP, they reportedly returned to their families in Dapchi on Sunday, March 25, 2018.

On February 19, the terrorists stormed the town and abducted 110 schoolgirls in a fashion similar to the April 2014 abduction of Chibok girls in Borno State.

 

Following negotiations with the Federal Government, the sect returned the 104 girls last week - five of them were said to have died in captivity while one, Leah Sharibu, was deliberately not released because she refused to denounce Christianity and convert to Islam.

The Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris had on Saturday, March 24, said that the terrorists had agreed to release Sharibu and that she was being transported back to Dapchi by the insurgents.

  The only Dapchi schoolgirl remaining in Boko Haram captivity, Leah Sharibu (SaharaReporters)

But the Police Force made a U-turn on Sunday, claiming that the IGP was "misunderstood and misquoted."

Idris even said that he shelved his planned visit to Dapchi so as not to jeopardize Sharibu's release.

"I am supposed to go to Dapchi today, let me be sincere with you but because of the girl (Leah Sharibu) that I learnt here will be released today.

"It is a sort of understanding that we don’t create much security (anxiety) there. By the time I fly (in a helicopter) there, they will think I break (in) and that is why I had to postpone the visit to Dapchi," the police boss had said on Saturday while speaking to journalists in Maiduguri, where he visited the Theatre Commander Operation Lafiya Dole in the fight against insurgency.

However, a statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Jimoh Moshood, said the misunderstanding could be partly because Dapchi residents were anxiously awaiting the safe return of the already released students, who have been in Abuja.

He said the girls could not get to Yobe State on Saturday because of "weather condition."