Nigeria has reached a ceasefire agreement with the Boko Haram group and the deal includes the release of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls, Nigerian officials said Friday.
The deal came after a month of negotiations with representatives of the group, said Hassan Tukur, principal secretary to President Goodluck Jonathan.
“We have agreed on the release of the Chibok schoolgirls, and we expect to conclude on that at our next meeting with the group’s representative next week in Chad,” the CNN quoted Tukur as saying.
Officials provided few details about the release.
Doyin Okupe, a government spokesman, did not specify when the girls would be freed. He said not all would be released at once, but a “significant number” would be freed soon.
“A batch of them will be released shortly, and this will be followed by further actions from Boko Haram,” he said. “It is a process. ... It is not a question of hours and days.”
The Nigerian government consented to some demands by Boko Haram, but Okupe declined to provide details.
The government, he said, “is looking beyond the girls. We want to end the insurgency in this country.”
“On the war front,” he added, “we can say there is peace now.”
The terrorist group abducted an estimated 276 girls in April from a boarding school in Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. Dozens escaped, but more than 200 are still missing.
