Forty-eight of the missing 94 pupils of the Government Girls Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, have come out of hiding.
The Yobe State Commissioner for Education, Mohammed Lamin, who stated this in Damaturu, added that the state government had organised search parties to look for the remaining 46 pupils.
The Busari Local Government Area, where the attack happened is 100 kilometres away from Damaturu, the Yobe State capital.
Lamin explained that the school registered 28 missing students that returned on Tuesday, saying 20 more were received from Magwaram village on Wednesday.
He said, “This has brought down the number of missing pupils from 94 to 48 as of this morning (Wednesday). We are still hopeful that more pupils will return soon.”
The commissioner asked parents to report to the school whenever their children arrived home.
There are conflicting reports about how exactly the girls went missing. Police and state officials said that 815 of the school’s 926 students had later returned to the school after fleeing into the bush outside the town during the attack.
Police and state officials said that there had been no evidence that the missing girls had been kidnapped by Boko Haram, suggesting that the rescued ones had been recovered from their hiding places.
However, the Yobe government later said in a statement that the military had rescued some of the students from the grips of the terror group.
The Yobe Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, charged the military and other security outfits to ensure that none of the pupil was lost.
The governor in a statement by his spokesman, Abdullahi Bego, said, “The Yobe State Government is working with the Nigerian Army and other security and law enforcement agencies to ensure that all students in the school are fully accounted for.
“As the public is aware, the pupils were helped by their teachers to escape to the surrounding bushes and villages as terrorists stormed the town on Monday.
“Many pupils are still unaccounted for, but the Yobe State Government has been receiving the girls that were found in the general area to which they escaped.
“The government is coordinating with law enforcement agencies to ensure that those girls are returned safely.”
“The Yobe State Government has no credible information as to whether any of the schoolgirls was taken hostage by the terrorists.
“The Yobe State Government assures parents and the school community that it will do everything necessary to ensure that all the missing girls are found and returned to their school and families and that security is improved in the area.”
The state government, in another statement send around 10pm, said more pupils had been rescued by by “gallant officers and men of the Nigerian Army from the terrorists who abducted them.”
The government further stated that the “rescued girls are now in the custody of the Nigerian Army.”
“We will provide more details about their number and condition in due course,” the statement added.
Since 2009, the Boko Haram militancy has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million others homeless.
Back in 2014, the Takfiri terrorist group kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in Borno State. The mass abduction triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country. An international campaign dubbed “Bring Back Our Girls” was also launched.
Of the 276 students originally abducted, nearly 60 escaped soon after the incident and some others have since been released after mediation. Some 100 are still believed to remain in captivity.
Last month, the terror group released a video allegedly showing some of the Chibok girls still in its custody, saying they do not wish to return home.
__________
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2018 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
