Details have now emerged about the conditions of release of the 21 Chibok girls. They were freed before dawn on 13th October in the north-eastern town of Banki, near the border with Cameroon. They were then transported to the capital, Abuja, where they met the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.
“The whole country has been waiting that one day we will see you again and we are very happy to see you back,” said Mr Osinbajo.
“The President in particular has asked me to tell you how excited he is. When you were away, he kept saying that if it were his daughter he wouldn’t even know what to do.
“So we are all very excited that you are here. We are all happy that God has preserved your lives and brought you back.”
Presidential aide Garba Shehu said the girls’ release was the “outcome of negotiations between the administration and the Boko Haram brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government”.
There was speculation that the girls were handed over in exchange for the release of Boko Haram fighters. AFP quoted a local source in saying that four Boko Haram prisoners had been “swapped” for the girls, but the information minister, Lai Mohammed, denied this.
“Please note that this is not a swap. It is a release, the product of painstaking negotiations and trust on both sides,” he said.
“We have nothing to add,” said a Swiss government official, when asked if it had been a prisoner swap.
The talks with the radical Islamic group will continue, according to the Nigerian government.
Pictures released by local media and a presidency official showed one of the girls holding a baby when they met Vice President Osinbajo. Many of the girls looked frail. Most of the girls were reportedly forcibly converted to Islam and forced into “marriage” by their captors.
