Nigeria’s militant group, Boko Haram has released 27 hostages it abducted in northern Cameroon between May and July this year including 10 Chinese workers.
Also included is the wife of Cameroon’s deputy Prime Minister, Amadou Ali and her maid were taken in the northern Cameroonian town of Kolofata in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The Chinese workers were seized in May near the town of Waza, about 20 km from the border with Nigeria in northern Cameroon.
Cameroon’s President, Paul Biya is believed to have personally involved in securing the hostages release but it unclear how he managed to do that. Local reporters in Nigeria say there were unsubstantiated allegations that the Cameroonian President might have paid the militants huge sums of ransom and heavy weapons in exchange of the hostages.
In a statement read on behalf of the Cameroonian President on national radio, the president only confirmed the release of the hostages without further details on how the hostages were freed.
“The 27 hostages kidnapped on May 16, 2014, at Waza and on July 27, 2014, at Kolofata were given this night to Cameroonian authorities, 10 Chinese, the wife of the Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali, the local religious leader of Kolofata, and the members of their families kidnapped with them are safe”, the statement said.
The Xinhua news agency’s African service said an official from the Chinese embassy in Cameroon has confirmed the release of the Chinese citizens and said they arrived in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé on Sunday in a Cameroon government chartered plane.
But despite this release, Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls it abducted in the town of Chibok in Borno State in April this year. The abduction sparked an international outrage.
An international rescue operation is still being carried out by the US and its allies to be able to locate and free the abducted schoolgirls.
Boko Haram five-year insurgency has intensified in recent months despite the deployment of thousands of extra troops to the worst-affected areas in the northeast by the Nigerian government.
The group has consolidated its recent campaign of annexing territory for its Islamic Caliphate State. The State of Borno is firmly under its control. All government troops’ station in the area has pulled out, leaving the area to the mercy of the militants according to local reports. Boko Haram has also taken some towns in the State of Adamawa.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that Boko Haram has killed more than 3,000 civilians this year alone.
Political analysts say this year is the worse year for Nigeria since Boko Haram began its armed insurgency in 2009.
Boko Haram is a Hausa language which translates to mean “Western education is forbidden” and it sees schools and colleges as a symbol of Western culture in Nigeria. It has vowed to eradicate such institutions and create an Islamic state in the north of the country.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
Writer’s Email Address: Adamsisska@googlemail.com
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