On a day President Goodluck Jonathan set up a panel to verify the
number of captured Nigerian schoolgirls, in Chibok, Borno state, the
Nigerian police already provide him the answer.
On Friday the
police confirmed that 276 girls were seized from the Girls Secondary
School in Chibok, by Boko Haram militants and that 223 of the girls are
still in captivity.
The new figure represents another dimension to the bizarre abduction of the school girls by Boko Haram militants.
School
and government officials in the northeastern state of Borno had
previously given lower figures on the numbers being held since the mass
abduction nearly three weeks ago in the town of Chibok.
Gunmen
believed to be Islamist fighters stormed the girls’ boarding school,
forcing them from their dormitories onto trucks and driving them into
the bush after a gun battle with soldiers.
Borno state police
commissioner Lawan Tanko said his officers and other security agencies
revised the figure after “intensive and extensive investigation,
consultations and collation of figures from parents and the school”.
“So
far, we have a comprehensive list of 276 girls abducted from the
Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok on April 14 and out of this
figure, 53 were able to escape and return,” he told AFP.
“The
number of girls being held by their abductors stands at 223 but this
figure is not exhaustive and may change because we have made an
announcement calling on parents whose daughters are missing from the
school to come forward and register their names.
“We have documented all the 53 girls that escaped.”
A
spokesman for Borno state governor said in the days after the abduction
that 129 girls were taken and 52 escaped, leaving 77 with the
abductors.
But the school principal disputed the figures,
maintaining that 230 girls were kidnapped, out of which 43 escaped while
187 were taken away.
Tanko blamed the discrepancy on the fact
that the students were from various schools in the area and had been
transferred to Chibok to sit their final exams because of Boko Haram
violence elsewhere in the state.
Student records were also burnt in a fire that destroyed a large part of the school after the attack, he added.
The
girls’ abduction has triggered global outrage and prompted protests in a
number of Nigerian cities, calling on the government to secure their
release.
Nigeria’s information minister, Labaran Maku, said on
Friday that President Goodluck Jonathan chaired a top-level meeting with
the military and security chiefs to review progress on a possible
rescue mission.
The government has denied charges from the girls’
families that they have mishandled the situation and Maku said
“extensive and intensive aerial surveillance” had been carried out
around Chibok and the border regions.
Search teams were also combing “all reported places that the girls might have been taken to”.
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