Nigeria, Boko Haram Reach Cease-Fire, Agree to Free Schoolgirls Last updated on: October 17, 2014 7:18 PM The Nigerian government says militant group Boko Haram has agreed to a cease-fire and the release of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants in April from the town of Chibok. Top Nigerian presidential aide Hassan Tukur told VOAs Hausa service the militants have agreed in principle to free the schoolgirls. Tukur said the details still need to be worked out, but said he has no reason to doubt Boko Harams sincerity. Tukur added that Boko Haram has assured the government the girls are in good condition and that overall, he is cautiously optimistic that a peace process with Boko Haram will succeed. The two sides reached the cease-fire deal Friday, after talks in Saudi Arabia that involved President Idriss Deby of Chad and high-level officials from Cameroon. Nigerias highest-ranking military official, General Alex Badeh, announced the the truce Friday, referring to Boko Haram by its formal Arabic-language name. He ordered all of the countrys military chiefs to abide by the deal. I wish to inform this audience that a cease-fire agreement has been concluded between the federal government of Nigeria and al-Sunna lil-Daʿawah wa al-Jihad, said Badeh. Boko Haram leaders have announced a unilateral cease-fire, said Tukur. The Nigerian government has responded accordingly, and we are now monitoring to see if the cease-fire is holding and I hope it will hold. Tukur said the negotiations in the past had not yet yielded any positive results, but I am cautiously optimistic that this time around ... we will be able to achieve some success. Negotiated release Tukur and Danladi Ahmadu, who calls himself the secretary-general of Boko Haram, told VOAs Hausa-language service the schoolgirls will be released Monday in Chad. The girls are alive and in good condition and unharmed, Ahmadu said. The sources said the girls will be handed over to Deby for transfer to Nigerian authorities. They also said Nigerian and Boko Haram delegates will meet in the Chadian capital, NDjamena, to discuss Boko Harams demands, such as the release of imprisoned militants. The cease-fire marks a possible end to the five-year insurgency in which several thousand Nigerians have been killed. Nigerian leader criticized Jonathan has been criticized at home and abroad for Nigerian troops inability to quell violence by the militants, seen as the biggest security threat to Africas top economy and leading energy producer. Chibok schoolgirls who escaped the rebels prepare to meet with officials in Maiduguri, Nigeria, June 2, 2014.Chibok schoolgirls who escaped the rebels prepare to meet with officials in Maiduguri, Nigeria, June 2, 2014. Criticism intensified in mid-April, when dozens of Boko Haram fighters stormed a secondary school in the remote northeastern village of Chibok, kidnapping around 270 girls. Fifty-seven managed to escape. In a video, the Boko Haram leader known as Abubakar Shekau threatened to sell the other girls as slave brides, vowing they would not be released until militant prisoners were freed from jail. Boko Haram has said it is fighting to establish an Islamic state in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria. The group has launched scores of attacks in the past five years, targeting markets, bus stations, government facilities, churches and even mosques. Militants recently took over some towns in the northeast for what Shekau said in another video would be an Islamic caliphate. The Nigerian military says that Shekau was actually an impostor and that the real Shekau was killed several years ago. It says the impostor was killed last month during a battle in the town of Konduga. VOAs Hausa service, correspondent Anne Look, and reporters Yusuf Aliyu Harande and Umar Farouk contributed to this report. youtube/watch?v=famzvQgp-SE
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 10:25:09 +0000
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