Handed Over

Dozens of Kidnapped Nigerian Schoolgirls Return Home

But witnesses say five girls were killed by Islamist militants.

Scores of Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped last month by Islamist militant group Boko Haram have been returned home, but five are said to have died while being kept captive and one Christian girl is still being held. Over a hundred girls were kidnapped by militants from Dapchi in the north of the country in February and Nigeria’s ministry of information said 79 of the girls were returned Wednesday. Witnesses said fighters, some of then shouting “God is greatest,” drove the girls back into the town in trucks in the morning, dropped them off, then left. But one of the freed girls told Reuters that five of her friends are dead and one girl hasn’t been returned. “Five among us taken away were dead. One is still with them because she is a Christian,” Khadija Grema said. Dapchi resident Muhammad Bursari said his niece who was freed, Hadiza Muhammed, told him the remaining girl had refused to convert to Islam. The ministry of information did not address reports that some of the girls had been killed or haven’t yet been returned.