Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle announced that 279 girls who were abducted last week from a boarding school in the northwestern Zamfara state have been released Tuesday. Bello Matawalle said that 279 girls had been freed after being abducted from the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town on Friday. It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students,” Matawalle said in a post on Twitter early Tuesday. In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released. The government has said no ransom was paid for the students’ release.