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Abduction by Boko Haram led to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, but today, kidnappings in Nigeria are so common they're hardly newsworthy.
Kidnapping is so common in Nigeria that even a large abduction is not major world news anymore.
Such was the case when dozens of children living in displaced persons’ camps in Nigeria’s northwest were kidnapped in early March.
Fortunately, security forces managed to free the 137 kids two weeks later.
But about 90 of the 276 Chibok school girls who were captured in 2014 – at a time when such an abduction created a major, worldwide campaign – are still missing.
The anniversary of that kidnapping is this Sunday.
On the night of April 14, 2014, militants of Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamist group arrived at a boarding school – the Government Girls Secondary School – in the town of Chibok, a Christian enclave in the northeast state of Borno. Most of the girls, aged 16-19, were Christian.
Fifty-seven of the students escaped immediately by jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported. The Nigerian Armed Forces have rescued others on various occasions. In 2016 and 2017, for example, negotiations led to the highly publicized liberation of around 100 of the captives.
Initially, a Twitter hashtag campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, caught the world’s attention, drawing support from people like former First Lady Michelle Obama and actor Sylvester Stallone.
Continued below.
aleteia.org
Kidnapping is so common in Nigeria that even a large abduction is not major world news anymore.
Such was the case when dozens of children living in displaced persons’ camps in Nigeria’s northwest were kidnapped in early March.
Fortunately, security forces managed to free the 137 kids two weeks later.
But about 90 of the 276 Chibok school girls who were captured in 2014 – at a time when such an abduction created a major, worldwide campaign – are still missing.
The anniversary of that kidnapping is this Sunday.
On the night of April 14, 2014, militants of Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamist group arrived at a boarding school – the Government Girls Secondary School – in the town of Chibok, a Christian enclave in the northeast state of Borno. Most of the girls, aged 16-19, were Christian.
Fifty-seven of the students escaped immediately by jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported. The Nigerian Armed Forces have rescued others on various occasions. In 2016 and 2017, for example, negotiations led to the highly publicized liberation of around 100 of the captives.
Initially, a Twitter hashtag campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, caught the world’s attention, drawing support from people like former First Lady Michelle Obama and actor Sylvester Stallone.
Rebuilding lives
Continued below.
Ten years after kidnapping, 90 Chibok girls remain missing
Abduction by Boko Haram led to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, but today, kidnappings in Nigeria are so common they're hardly newsworthy.
aleteia.org
