(CNN)Boko Haram
militants handed over 21 missing Chibok schoolgirls to Nigerian
authorities Thursday morning as part of a deal brokered by the
International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss government,
Nigeria's government said.
The
girls are being taken to the northeastern city of Maiduguri, where they
will meet with the governor of Borno state, officials in the state said.
The girls were not immediately named.
The
21 are said to be among the 276 girls that Boko Haram militants herded
from bed in the middle of the night at a school in northern Nigeria in
April 2014 -- a kidnapping that spurred global outrage.
As
many as 57 girls escaped almost immediately, but scores remain missing.
Thursday's release is the largest group believed freed since the girls
were kidnapped two years ago.
Terms of Thursday's deal were not
immediately announced, but no jailed Boko Haram fighters were released
in exchange for the girls, a source with direct knowledge of the release
said on condition of anonymity.
Mallam
Garba Shehu, spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, said on
Twitter that the 21 released girls are now in the custody of the
Department of State Services, the Nigerian domestic intelligence agency.
The agency chief has briefed the
government, Shehu tweeted, and has said the girls need to rest "with all
of them very tired coming out of the process before he hands them over
to the Vice President."
"The
release of the girls ... is the outcome of negotiations between the
(Nigerian) administration and the Boko Haram brokered by the
International Red Cross and the Swiss government. The negotiations will
continue," Shehu tweeted.
This
photo, obtained exclusively by CNN, shows some of the 21 girls who were
released to the Nigerian military Thursday morning in Nigeria.
#BringBackOurGirls
The 2014 kidnapping prompted global figures such as Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai and first lady Michelle Obama to support a #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
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