Nigeria’s military command in Borno state has released 42 Boko Haram suspects to Governor Kashim Shettima.

Three of those released were from Burkina Faso, Chad and Cameroon. They were given $1,000 each by the military and the state government.

It was not immediately clear, whether the release was in connection with the longstanding mocking demand by the Boko Haram leadership that Nigeria #bringbackourarmy, in exchange for the 219 schoolgirls captured at Chibok Girls Secondary School in April, about which there is an international campaign to #bringbackourgirls.

The release also came the day the army was accused of extra-judicial killings in neighbouring Yobe State, where 16 of the 17 people arrested by soldiers in Potiskum on Wednesday, were found dead today, bearing bullet wounds.