“Everybody is celebrating their coming with songs and praises to God almighty,” said Babagana Umar, one of the parents whose daughter had disappeared. “The only sad news is that two girls were dead and no explanation.”
The rescued girls were returned to the village of Dapchi late on Wednesday evening, Umar and other residents said.
Earlier on Wednesday, sources told that 91 people were unaccounted for after a roll-call at their school on Tuesday.
Boko Haram Takfiri militants attacked Dapchi in the northeastern state of Yobe on Monday evening.
Police and state officials said on Wednesday that there was no evidence that the girls had been abducted, though the Yobe government later said in a statement that the military had rescued some of the students from Boko Haram.
Since 2009, the Boko Haram militancy has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million others homeless.
If confirmed, the girls’ disappearance would be one of the largest since the Takfiri terrorist group kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. The mass kidnapping triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country as well as an international "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign.
Of the 276 originally abducted students, nearly 60 escaped soon after the incident and others have since been released after mediation. Some 100 are still believed to remain in captivity.
