Standup9ja: Freed
Chibok Girls To Be Reunited With Their Families Next Week
According to
the Minister of Womens Affairs, Sen. Aisha Alhassan, the 82 Chibok schoolgirls
who were released after being held for more than three years by Boko Haram will
be reunited with their parents next week.
According to
the minister, the parents will travel from the northeastern town in Borno state
to meet their daughters in the capital, Abuja.
“Any parents
that identified their children will be brought next week to see them,” she told
AFP at the staff quarters of the Department of State Services.
The 82 girls
have been staying at the domestic intelligence agency facility on the outskirts
of the city since their release in a prisoner swap deal on Saturday after
months of negotiations. The Islamist militants kidnapped 276 girls back in
April 2014, triggering global condemnation and drawing attention to the sect.
Fifty-seven girls were able to escape in the immediate aftermath. Of the 219
who did not manage to flee, 106 have either been released or found, leaving 113
still missing.
First Lady
Aisha Buhari met with some of the Chibok girls on Wednesday. The girls, dressed
in colourful traditional ankara print dresses, sang songs and danced in front
of the cameras.
The minister
added that the recently released 82 girls would be reunited at another facility
in the capital with 24 of their classmates who were released or found last
year. They will receive “psycho-social therapy” and “vocational training” to
help them reintegrate into society. Campaign groups and families have criticised
the government for keeping the previously released girls away from their
parents but Sen. Alhassan said they were free to come and go from the centre.
Most chose to stay in the capital, she had added.
The
government’s goal is to have all the girls back in school at the start of the
new academic year, she said without specifying where. “I believe from now to
September, these other ones (the recently released 82 girls) would have
stabilised and we will be able to take all of them back to school in
September.”
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