In mid-April of 2014, Boko Haram—a radical Islamic organization governed by Abubakar Shekau until August of 2016, and succeeded by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, operating throughout northeastern Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon—abducted approximately two hundred seventy-six to three hundred schoolgirls ranging from the ages of twelve to eighteen from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School. Storming the hallways with AK-47s, the jihadists wrenched families from one another, leaving heavyhearted mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers weeping for their beloveds.
[When] asked how she was coping, she said, ‘How can I start?'”
Following the sorrowful occurrence, “a video in which Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the kidnappings emerged [declaring] that ‘Allah instructed me to sell them…I will carry out his instructions,’ and, ‘Slavery is allowed in my religion, and I shall capture people and make them slaves.’ He said the girls should not have been in school and instead should have been married since girls as young as nine are suitable for marriage.“
As of May of 2014, the New York Times reported that fifty of the victims had fled their imprisonment; however, zero had been officially been recovered.
Internationally, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States strategized a governmental response through authorizing a resolution “calling for the immediate and unconditional release” of the abductees on July 17th, to extending the hand of specialist task forces, and recommending their fatherland for summits to analyze the circumstances and develop rescue tactics.
The former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, on the other hand, supplied minimal efforts in comparison, yet assured his citizens the Nigerian government was applying all of its resources to reclaim the schoolgirls. Nonetheless, in contradiction of his unquestioning devotion and sympathy, President Jonathan held the mourning parents accountable by accusing them of not providing law enforcement with a sufficient amount of evidence on their children.
In September of 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari—elected to into Nigeria’s Congress in May 2016—established a negotiation with Boko Haram that entailed the exchange of the insurgency prisoners for the schoolgirls, which would arise in Maiduguri, the Boko Haram’s self-professed spiritual address.
“‘All things were in place for the swap which was mutually agreed,’ Lai Mohammed, the information [and culture] minister, said in a statement. ‘Expectations were high. Unfortunately, after more than two weeks of negotiation and bargains, the group, just at the dying moments, issued a new set of demands never bargained for or discussed by the group before the movement to Maiduguri. All this while, the security agencies waited patiently. This development stalled what would have been the first release process of the Chibok girls.'”
In spite of the prolonged torment, at last progression was made from government comprise on Thursday, October 13th, 2016, at 5:30AM when twenty-one survivors and a twenty month-old infant male birthed in captivity were set at liberty.
“‘The release of the girls, in a limited number, is the outcome of negotiations between the administration and the Boko Haram, brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government,’ Garba Shehu, a spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari, said in a series of messages posted on Twitter. ‘The negotiations will continue.'”
Moreover, “‘Please note that this is not a swap,’ Lai Mohammed said. ‘It is a release, the product of painstaking negotiations and trust on both sides. We see this as a credible first step in the eventual release of all the Chibok girls in captivity.'”
At a news conference hosting government ministers, officeholders, journalists, and the outlasting schoolgirls themselves, Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo exhibited his announcement, “[describing] the girls as being in ‘reasonably good health considering the circumstances they’ve been held in.’ He added that they would stay in a medical facility ‘for some time, until we’re reasonably satisfied of their health condition.'”
With this optimism unfortunately comes a pessimism, for one hundred ninety-seven victims continually persevere within their internment, some deceased, and some rejecting their homecoming as a result of marriages to Boko Haram combatants.
Nevertheless, Yemi Osinbajo has estimated that, “‘In the next few days, the next few months, we should be able to bring in more of these girls, along the same lines, using exactly the same negotiations.'”
If you are interested in additional information and/or platforms of activism for the described Chibok schoolgirls, visit bringbackourgirls.us.
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