Nigeria: 110 girls missing after Boko Haram attack

ABUJA, Nigeria—The Nigerian government on Sunday confirmed 110 schoolgirls from Yobe state remain missing a week after Boko Haram militants stormed a town. The confirmation comes after multiple conflicting reports about the attack. Information Minister Lai Mohammed said the figure followed meetings with some of the girls’ families in the town of Dapchi. “The total register of the students that came to school that day was 906, but as at today, about 110 of them cannot be accounted for, and that is the situation,” he said. Boko Haram militants attacked Dapchi on Feb. 19, sending many people fleeing into the bushes to escape the gunfire. When they returned to the village, they discovered the girls missing from the government secondary school. State officials earlier reported the army had rescued some of the girls, but later retracted that statement. Bashir Manzo, one of the parents whose daughter remains missing, told Nigerian newspaper Premium Times the parents’ record shows 105 girls are missing. Air force spokesman Olatokunbo Adesanya in a statement Sunday said, “Renewed efforts at locating the girls are being conducted in close liaison with other surface security forces.”