When 100 armed men
turned up at a
girls’ boarding school they claimed to be Nigerian government
troops sent to protect the pupils from marauding terrorists.
Staff took them at
their word and it was only when 329 terrified teenagers were ordered out of
their beds in the dead of night and herded into Toyota Hilux jeeps that they
knew something was wrong.
In fact the
soldiers were themselves
terrorists from the radical Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram – and
they were there to carry out one of worst mass kidnappings in modern history.
Families of the
schoolgirls, aged from 15 to 18, are certain their daughters are now being used
as sex slaves by an extreme sect that has killed 1,500 people since the start
of this year alone.
They are captives
in the wild Sambisa Forest in north-east Nigeria where Boko Haram has a heavily
armed camp of bunkers, tunnels, ramshackle buildings and tents.
One girl who recently escaped following an earlier kidnapping said she
was prized as a terror leader’s wife because she had been a virgin. She said
young female captives were raped up to 15 times a day, forced to convert to
Islam and had their throats cut if they refused.
Since the school
abductions on April 14, news has filtered back of mass marriages with girls
forcibly shared out as brides. Boko Haram has warned that any attempt to find
them will lead to their execution.
Under President
Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian government appears to have done little except
issue an entirely false claim that most of the girls had been rescued by
defence forces. Now as an international outcry builds, former Prime
Minister Gordon Brown is travelling to Nigeria on Tuesday in his
role as the UN’s special adviser on girls’ education.
His aim is to
secure the pupils’ release. But with stories of many already trafficked into
neighbouring Chad and Cameroon for just 2,000 nira (£7.50) campaigners fear
that without urgent action they will never be seen again.
“It is a very bad
situation for those girls,” says Mma Odi, executive director of the Nigerian
charity Baobab Women’s Human Rights.
“The men went to
the school for no other reason than to make them their sex objects. The men
will have reduced them to sex slaves, raping them over and over again. And any
girl who tries to resist will be shot by them. They have no conscience.
“The conditions
will be terrible and it seems like the government has just abandoned them
because they are girls and they are poor. If they were the sons of the rich,
the government would act.
“Their abductors
are not human beings and if the girls get out they will no longer be normal.
They will have to have years of counselling to recover.”
At the time of the
abduction most schools in the region had closed because of attacks by a terror
sect whose very name, Boko Haram, means “Western education is sinful” in the
Hausa language.
But these girls
had returned to their school in Chibok to take the West Africa Senior School
Certificate examination, equivalent to our GCSEs. They were due to start their
tests the morning after they were kidnapped at gunpoint.
As the news of the
abductions spread, frantic parents rode motorbikes into the forest in pursuit.
But they were met by villagers who told them with icy certainty that unless
they turned back they would be shot dead by the terrorists.
Some girls managed
to escape. In the end 53 got away, but 276 are still missing.
A girl called
Rehab, 17, told how she jumped from a truck with schoolmate, Comfort, 15, as
they were driven into the forest: “We summoned up some courage and grabbed
some of the branches and clung on to them while the truck moved on with the
other girls,” she said.
“We jumped down
and began to run into the darkness. Comfort and I went in the same direction
but four other girls took the path back to a village. We didn’t know where we
were but we kept running.”
Malam Ali Iliya is
the father of another schoolgirl who escaped.
“My daughter said
when the trailer got stuck, some of the girls began to jump out and run for
their lives and she followed suit. We are lucky our children were not shot,” he
said.Boko Haram’s goal is to turn Nigeria into a devout Muslim state under
Sharia law. It bombs churches and schools and slaughters men, women and
children.
In February its forces attacked a boys’ boarding school,
locked the pupils in a building then set it on fire. Any boys who got out had
their throats cut and 59 died.
Source :Daily Mirror UK... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boko-haram-329-schoolgirls-stolen-3489356#ixzz30lZrkCH8
U must be one of dem bt God pass una
ReplyDeleteThis stories are not true.The story says one of the escapees said she was priced as a leader's wife cos she is a virgin and that the girls were raped 15 times a day. How could she have known all these? When the story broke out,we were told the girls escaped when d truck got stuck,with this it is clear that if truly there was any case of kidnap and if we go by the way the girls escaped,it simply means none of the escapees got to their camp with the. How come one of then is now telling us that the girls are raped 15 times a day. All these stories don't just add up @ all.
ReplyDeleteYou must have regularly failed comprehension in secondary school. Read again and see if you could understand .
DeleteBeastly Animals in human skin
ReplyDeleteOh no! What has raping of girls got to do with whatever you are agitating for, boko haram?
ReplyDeleteLet God ARISE! God has not changed, He is the same God who ambushed the enemies of Israel severally. #letGodarise is a divine instruction to call on God to wipe out Boko Haram!
ReplyDeleteAny man dat rape any of d girl will not go unpunish, God will answer them someday , they will surffer for what dey do
ReplyDeleteHmmmm dis is 2much 4 dis girls na God pls com 2 dia rescue its so dishearteningoooo. Nonny
ReplyDeleteThe escaped girl didn't mention if she too was raped by the leader. The stories were disjointed and seemed fabricated. If some of the. Girls escaped hw will they mirrior the rape of others?. We need to be careful of free talks on this issue to avoid heart attack by parents whose. Children are still missing.
ReplyDelete