The Islamic State-allied faction of Boko Haram is willing to release 83 more Chibok girls after freeing 21 of the girls last week.
After the release of 21 of more than 200 Chibok girls kidnapped in April 2014 in northeast Nigeria, there are reports that Boko Haram is willing to negotiate the release of 83 more of the girls.
This is coming two years after girls were abducted from their school in Chibok in northeastern Borno state, where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state.
A faction of the insurgent group released 21 of the girls on Thursday after the Red Cross and the Swiss government brokered a deal.
“These 21 released girls are supposed to be talebearers to tell the Nigerian government that this faction of Boko Haram has 83 more Chibok girls,” Garba Shehu, spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
“The faction said it is ready to negotiate if the government is willing to sit down with them,” said Shehu, adding that the state is prepared to negotiate with the branch of Boko Haram.
In recent days, the Nigerian army has been carrying out an offensive in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram.
The militants controlled a swathe of land around the size of Belgium at the start of 2015, but Nigeria’s army has recaptured most of the territory. The group still stages suicide bombings in the northeast, as well as in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.
