"Our visit became something else."

The Nigerian government confirmed that 101 of the girls seized in Dapchi on February 19 had been freed. Nigeria denied a ransom was paid for their release.

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Yakubu Nkeki, chairman of the Chibok parents' association and whose niece was abducted at Chibok, described the scene of jubilation after the girls were reunited with their families.

"Right in front of us, the militants brought the girls and dropped them and then left," he said.

He said some of the girls, aged between 11 and 19, looked "panicked" initially and could barely respond to questions.

No official details were given about those who did not return, but Galang said she spoke with a number of the freed girls who told her that five of their schoolmates had died and one was held back because she refused to convert to Islam.

"They said that three girls fell (out of the trucks) and into the river on their way to (the) Sambisa (forest hideout of Boko Haram). Two others died in the forest," said Galang.

She described how she wept watching the parents being reunited with their daughters as she still had no word about the fate of her own daughter.

"I cried seriously," she said.

Campaigners welcomed the release of the Dapchi girls while calling on the government to do more to ensure the release of the Chibok girls whose abduction was the biggest publicity coup of Boko Haram's nine-year insurgency.

The Islamist group has killed at least 20,000 people, uprooted more than 2.7 million and sparked one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, according to aid agencies.

"This is incredible news, and fortuitous at a time when the Chibok parents are visiting the Dapchi parents," said Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode, head of the Murtala Muhammed Foundation, which sponsored the Chibok parents' trip to Dapchi.

"However, it puts on us an even greater responsibility to ensure that all of the remaining Chibok girls are returned. Nearly four years in captivity is an outrage."

Thomson Reuters Foundation