Years After Boko Haram Kidnapping, Dozens of Girls Are Freed, Nigeria Says

A group of Chibok girls who were released by Boko Haram in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 2016. About 80 more girls have been freed, a Nigerian official said on Saturday.

DAKAR, Senegal — Dozens of the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants just over three years ago in the Nigerian village of Chibok have been released as part of an exchange for detained suspects from the militant group, a statement from Nigeria’s president said early Sunday.

The release of the girls is by far the biggest breakthrough in a tragedy that has come to define the nearly eight-year war against Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group that has burned, killed and kidnapped its way across parts of West Africa, killing thousands and causing millions to flee for their lives.

The government, after lengthy negotiations, handed over “some Boko Haram suspects held by authorities” in exchange for 82 of the girls, according to a statement from a spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari. The statement credited the government of Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross, local and international nongovernmental organizations, the military and security agencies with facilitating the exchange.

The girls were expected to arrive in Abuja, the capital, on Sunday to meet with Mr. Buhari.

“The president has repeatedly expressed his total commitment towards ensuring the safe return of the #ChibokGirls, and all other Boko Haram captives,” the statement said, referring to one of the social media campaigns on behalf of the girls.

The girls were released near Banki, a town in northeastern Nigeria along the border with Cameroon, according to an official who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity. Some reports indicated that the number of girls released was closer to 60. The girls first will fly to Maiduguri, a major city in the northeast where Boko Haram is most active, the official said.

To much of the world, the mass abduction of nearly 300 girls from a Nigerian school as they prepared for exams three years ago was a shocking introduction to the atrocities and humanitarian crises caused by Boko Haram, galvanizing global attention to a militant group that had already been terrorizing Nigerians for years.

An international campaign, led by Nigerians but joined by prominent figures around the globe like Michelle Obama, then the first lady, demanded immediate action to bring the girls home. But the leader of Boko Haram scoffed at the world’s sudden attention to Nigeria’s upheaval and shrugged off the global outrage, vowing to sell the girls in the market and “give their hands in marriage because they are our slaves.”

“We would marry them out at the age of 9,” warned the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau. “We would marry them out at the age of 12.”

Until now, only about 22 of the girls have been found or released, some with the help of the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross. And even with the dozens believed to be released on Saturday, well over 100 girls are still thought to be in Boko Haram’s clutches, many possibly married to fighters or forced to become combatants themselves. Previously released girls have told family members that some of the girls from Chibok have died in childbirth or in military raids.