New information has come to light following the news that 82 of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by militant jihadist group Boko Haram in 2014 have been released, Fairfax reports.
82 girls were freed as part of a prisoner exchange facilitated by the Nigerian government and international aid agencies such as Red Cross. Now one of the mediators involved in their release, lawyer Zannah Mustapha, has revealed that some of the girls didn’t want to come home.
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“Some girls refused to return,” Mustapha told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, adding that, “as a mediator, it is not part of my mandate to force them.”
Around 113 girls are believed to still be held hostage, following the release of 21 girls in October 2016 and several who have managed to escape.
The mediator’s revelations have renewed fears that the girls have been radicalised by Boko Haram or have developed Stockholm syndrome in the three years since their capture.
Many have been forced into marrying their captors, who have fathered their children since kidnapping them from their high school in 2014.
