Reports in international media say that 279 Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by suspected criminal gangs last Friday have been released.

Al Jazeera reports that the kidnappers have released nearly 300 girls who were abducted from a boarding school in the northwestern Nigerian state of Zamfara on Friday, according to the state governor.

Bello Matawalle said on Tuesday the students were safe with authorities and no ransom had been paid for their release.

“Today, we have received the children who were under captivity since Friday. I initiated a peace accord which yielded a positive result. No ransom was paid to anyone. I insisted that we were not going to give anything to any of them,” Matawalle reportedly told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the governor of Nigeria's Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle, has met the group of schoolgirls. The 279 girls were taken to the governor’s office in the state capital Gusau for debriefing.

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