Nigeria's freed schoolgirls reunite with families

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - Nigerian government on Saturday reunited the 82 Chibok schoolgirls with their parents, two weeks after they were freed from their Boko Haram captors in a deal reportedly involving prisoners’ swap with the militants.

Officials, however, told the parents that the girls would remain in government custody until they complete psychosocial and medical therapies required to heal the trauma of three years of abduction.

"The children are being rehabilitated and we believe that in due course they will be properly aligned with their families,” Abidemi Aremo, an official in the Women Affairs Ministry, told the parents at the emotion-laden reunion at a facility of the secret police in the capital city Abuja.

"Intensive medical attention is being administered and as soon as they are done, they will be enrolled into a remedial programme," she added, apparently addressing concerns over the government's still keeping custody of the girls.

Aremo said the 82 girls had earlier been reunited with 24 other schoolgirls with whom they had been abducted on the night of April 14, 2014 by Boko Haram militants in the northeastern Chibok town.

A total of 276 schoolgirls had been abducted from their dormitory. Some 57 of the girls escaped from their captors on the same night, three were rescued through army operations while 21 were freed last October through negotiations.

With the 82 released on Saturday, the tally of the girls who have regained their freedom comes to 163, leaving 113 still with their captors, according to figure provided by the #BringBackOurGirls’ movement.