14 kidnapped schoolgirls escape

Another 14 Nigerian
schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists in
the northeast have escaped, leaving 85 missing on
Saturday after an attack that has sparked global
outrage, an official said.

The unprecedented mass abduction of 129 teenage
girls from the Chibok area of Borno state has been
described as among the most shocking ever by
Boko Haram, an extremist group blamed for killing
thousands since 2009.
"I am glad to say that 14 more students have
escaped from their abductors," Borno's education
commissioner Inua Kubo told journalists.
"With this development, we have 44 out of our 129
students."

It was not immediately clear how this latest group
managed to flee, although Kubo said 11 had been
found after running to a town on the Damboa road
which connects Chibok to Borno's capital
Maiduguri.
They have since been sent to their family villages,
while the three others had returned to their school
in Chibok and were being cared for there, he said.

"We are hopefully expecting the return of our 85
students as intensive search and rescue efforts
continue," Kubo said.
Some of the girls who escaped within a day of the
April 15 attack said the Islamists had taken the
hostages to the Sambisa Forest area of Borno
state, where Boko Haram is known to have well-
fortified camps.

The military said it had launched a major search
and rescue operation, but some in the region say
they have lost confidence in the security forces
after the defence ministry issued an erroneous
report claiming that most of the girls were safe.
That statement, issued late Wednesday, said all but
eight of those abducted were free, but defence
spokesman Chris Olukolade was forced to
withdraw the report on Friday after it turned out to
be inaccurate

Boko Haram, whose name loosely translates as
"Western education is forbidden", has repeatedly
attacked schools during its five-year uprising,
including the mass slaughter of students in their
sleep.
The attack on the girls' school came just hours a
bomb blast at packed bus station on the outskirts
of Abuja killed 75 people, the deadliest attack ever
in the capital.

President Goodluck Jonathan held an emergency
meeting with his national security council on
Thursday to review the latest unrest, with another
meeting set for next week.