What we know about the Chibok girls: PHOTOS
What you need to know:
- Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility in a video released on May 5, and vowed to sell the girls as slave brides.
- A week later, a second video showed about 100 of the missing girls.
- Boko Haram said they had converted to Islam and would not be released unless militant fighters held in custody are freed.
The Boko Haram jihadist group abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in the remote town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria on April 14, 2014. The gunmen seized 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno state.
The girls were forced from their dormitories onto trucks and driven into the bush. Fifty-seven girls managed to flee.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility in a video released on May 5, and vowed to sell the girls as slave brides.
A week later, a second video showed about 100 of the missing girls. Boko Haram said they had converted to Islam and would not be released unless militant fighters held in custody are freed.
Mothers of the missing Chibok school girls abducted by Boko Haram Islamists gather to receive information from officials on May 5, 2014. The jihadists have abducted 13 more women. FILE PHOTO | AFP
Since then, various efforts have been made to rescue the girls.
A month after their abduction, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, backed by US First Lady Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, fired up a social media storm.
GLOBAL ATTENTION
#BringBackOurGirls undoubtedly brought global attention to a brutal but largely ignored conflict that since 2009 has claimed at least 20,000 lives and made more than 2.6 million others homeless.
It also galvanised international support against Boko Haram at a time when Nigeria’s military was floundering badly in the face of the better-armed rebels, losing territory and vital public support.
On May 17, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria vowed to fight Boko Haram together, in what Cameroon President Paul Biya termed a "declaration of war".
The UN Security Council said the kidnappings "may amount to crimes against humanity", as Britain, China, France, Israel and the US offered help.
A woman carries placard to press for the release of missing Chibok school girls during a rally by civil society in Lagos on May 5, 2014. Only 15 out of the 112 missing Chibok girls alive, says journalist. PHOTO | AFP
US military specialists were deployed to neighbouring Chad but later moved elsewhere after Nigeria stopped requesting their services.
On May 26, Nigeria's Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh said the girls had been located but warned a rescue operation would put their lives at risk.
One year later, on April 14, 2015, Nigeria's president-elect Muhammadu Buhari warned he "cannot promise that we can find" the girls, as vigils were held in many countries to mark their first year in captivity.
GIRLS SEPARATED
Amnesty International said the girls may have been separated into three or four groups and were being held in camps, some of which might be in Cameroon or Chad.
Buhari said in late December 2016 he was willing to negotiate with any "credible" Boko Haram leadership, a week after claiming the country has "technically" won the war against Boko Haram.
In March 2016, it emerged that Boko Haram also seized 500 women and children from the northeast town of Damasak in Borno state just months after the Chibok abduction. The kidnapping was denied at the time.
On the eve of the abduction's second anniversary, US news channel CNN reported that Boko Haram had sent a "proof of life" video which showed 15 of the girls — the first concrete indication that at least some were still alive.
The 21 Chibok girls who were released by Boko Haram last week attend a meeting on October 19, 2016 with the Nigerian President at State House in Abuja, Nigeria. PHOTO | PHILIP OJISUA | AFP
On May 18, 2016 the Nigerian army confirmed the first of the schoolgirls had been found.
The 19-year-old, who later met President Buhari, was discovered with a four-month-old baby and a man she described as her husband near Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest enclave.
On October 13, 2016, Nigerian officials announced the release of 21 of the girls following talks between the government and Boko Haram brokered by Switzerland and the International Red Cross.
Oludolapo Osinbajo (left), the wife of Nigeria vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, consoles one of the 21 released Chibok girls in Abuja, Nigeria, on October 13, 2016. A total of 21 of the 270 girls seized by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in 2014 were released Thursday. PHOTO | AFP/EPA
JIHADIST PRISONERS FREED
Local sources said four jihadist prisoners were freed as part of the deal to secure the girls' release.
The Nigerian government raised the prospect that more releases could follow, with a senior official in the president's office saying that "the negotiations will continue".
Government officials and lawyers in Nigeria proposed tougher laws to curb kidnappings, with the death penalty being suggested.
In April 2017, Boko Haram Islamists abducted 22 girls and women in two separate raids in northeast Nigeria, residents and vigilantes said.
The jihadists raided the village of Pulka near the border with Cameroon where they kidnapped 18 girls.
"Boko Haram fighters from Mamman Nur camp arrived in pickup vans around 6:00 am and seized 14 young girls aged 17 and below while residents fled into the bush," a Pulka community leader said.
"They picked four other girls who were fleeing the raid they came across in the bush outside the village," said the community leader, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.
On May 6, 2017, at least 80 more girls were released. A schoolgirl who was among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 refused to be part of a release deal because she is now married to a militant fighter.
Children stand around a vehicle in Chibok in Borno State north-eastern Nigeria on March 25, 2016. There's not much left of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenagers in the dead of night nearly two years ago. PHOTO | AFP
The disclosure underlines the complex psychological effects of a lengthy captivity, and gives an indication of the work required to rehabilitate and reintegrate those released.
