Kidnapped from their dormitory exactly 10 years ago, the 276 captives known as the Chibok Girls were catapulted to fame by Michelle Obama, by churches that took up the mostly Christian students’ cause and by campaigners using the slogan “Bring Back Our Girls.”
“The only crime of these girls was to go to school,” said Allen Manasseh, a youth leader from Chibok who has spent years pushing for their release.
Their lives have taken wildly different turns since the abduction. Some escaped almost immediately; 103 were released a few years later after negotiations. A dozen or so now live abroad, including in the United States. As many as 82 are still missing, perhaps killed or still held hostage.
Chibok was the first mass kidnapping from a school in Nigeria — but far from the last. Today, kidnapping — including of large groups of children — has become a business across the West African country, with ransom payments the main motivation.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“If she hadn’t shouted that, we would have all escaped,” Ms. Dauda said in a series of interviews this past week in the city of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram’s violent insurgency.
Today, kidnapping — including of large groups of children — has become a business across the West African country, with ransom payments the main motivation.
The Chibok Girls are only the most prominent victims of a 15-year conflict with Islamist militants which, despite the hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions uprooted, has largely been forgotten amid other wars.
For months after being captured, Ms. Dauda said, the girls slept outside in the Sambisa forest, Boko Haram’s hide-out, listened to a steady stream of Islamic preachers and fought over limited water supplies.
Although she was still a hostage of Boko Haram’s murderous leader, Abubakar Shekau, and his henchmen, she said that they were given everything they needed, surrounded by people “who cared about each other like a family,” and that she was happy.
When Boko Haram’s leader died and its powerful offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, took over in the Sambisa forest, Ms. Dauda and her husband found themselves on the wrong side, she said, and under suspicion.
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