LIBERATION OF 76 YOUNG GIRLS REMOVED BY

BOKO HARAM

76 girls were released on Wednesday and dropped off at their school by their kidnappers after a month of captivity with Boko Haram.

"The girls were taken back into nine vehicles and dropped in front of the school around 8:00 am [this Wednesday, March 21, ed]," says Bashir Manzo, the leader of an association helping parents of abducted children.

They were "not accompanied by any security forces," he adds, adding that "their captors just dropped them off and left without talking to anyone."

They "let us go, they told us to go directly to the house and not to the military, because they would say that they were the ones who saved us , " says a girl Aisha who says they do not have not been abused.

But several girls have died on the day of the kidnapping and the Nigerian authorities are currently doing a precise count

Five girls reportedly dead on kidnapping day, according to Aisha

The Nigerian presidency announced on Twitter that "the details about the release of Dapchi's daughters will be made available in a timely manner," adding that "girls are currently in the hands of intelligence services (DSS)" .

This sudden release raises many questions. It comes in the aftermath of Amnesty International's accusations that the Nigerian army was informed of the fighters' movements just before the mass kidnapping but did not react in time.

Recall that this is not the first kidnapping in Nigeria: the abductions of Dapchi echo those of Chibok in April 2014, where more than 200 high school girls had been abducted. While some of them have since escaped or been released as a result of negotiations with the government, more than 100 remain untraceable.

Experts believe that ransomed and released prisoners, in exchange for the release of a hundred high school girls from Chibok, were able to motivate Boko Haram to commit a new mass kidnapping in Dapchi despite the denial of the authorities. "No ransom was paid to release the schoolgirls," said the government.

Some raise suspicions of ransom. "This release is amazing enough not to raise a lot of questions, especially on the payment of ransoms," says Yan St-Pierre, expert counterterrorism of the Mosecom (Modern Security Consulting Group) also highlighting that the girls of Dapchi are not the first hostages to have been released this year.

"If that's what happened, the Nigerian government had to pay a large sum to speed up the process and avoid another Chibok."