Witnesses say Boko Haram militants have returned an unknown number of the 110 girls who were abducted from their Nigeria school a month ago
Here we go again. This article indicates that almost all the girls who were kidnapped last month have been returned. There is no mention of 80 girls having been rescued days later (see story below). Was that another Nigerian lie to suggest that the military was actually doing something? You seriously can't believe anything that comes out of this God-forsaken country where truth is extremely unlikely in any area of life.
Falmata Abubakar, one of the girls freed from the Government Girls Science and Technical College Dapchi, is photographed after her release by Islamist Terrorist in Dapchi, Nigeria, Wednesday March. 21, 2018. Witnesses say Boko Haram militants have returned an unknown number of the 110 girls who were abducted from their Nigeria school a month ago. (AP Photo/Jossy Ola)
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Boko Haram extremists returned almost all of the 110 girls abducted from their Nigeria boarding school a month ago with an ominous warning, witnesses said Wednesday.
The fighters rolled into Dapchi around 2 a.m. in nine vehicles and the girls were left in the centre of town. As terrified residents emerged from their homes, the extremists said “this is a warning to you all,” resident Ba’ana Musa told The Associated Press.
“We did it out of pity. And don’t ever put your daughters in school again,” the extremists said. Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language.
Nigeria’s government said 101 of the 110 schoolgirls, most of them Muslim, had been confirmed freed and that the number “would be updated after the remaining ones have been documented.”
“No ransoms were paid,” the information minister, Lai Mohammed, said in a statement. The girls were released “through back-channel efforts and with the help of some friends of the country, and it was unconditional.”
In Islam it is forbidden to rape a Muslim girl unless you are married to her or unless she was behaving badly (her hair was showing, etc.). Only non-Muslim girls can be taken as slaves/sex slaves by Muslim men. They must have been thoroughly disappointed to find that most of the girls were Muslim. Poor research on their part.
Family members were en route to the town Wednesday morning.
“When I get there we will do a head count to see if all of them have been released,” said Bashir Manzo, whose 16-year-old daughter was among those kidnapped during the Feb. 19 attack.
Manzo confirmed that his daughter was among those freed.
“As I speak to you there is jubilation in Dapchi,” he said.
The mass abduction and the government response brought back painful memories of the 2014 attack on a boarding school in Chibok. Boko Haram militants abducted 276 girls, and about 100 of them have never returned. Some girls were forced to marry their captors, and many had children fathered by the militants.
The Chibok girls were mostly Christians.
The latest mass abduction is thought to have been carried out by a Boko Haram splinter group aligned with the Islamic State, one that has criticized the leader of the main Boko Haram organization for targeting civilians and has focused instead on military and Western targets.
Residents in Dapchi fled on Wednesday morning upon hearing that Boko Haram vehicles were headed toward the town.
“We fled but, from our hiding, we could see them and surprisingly, we saw our girls getting out of the vehicles,” Umar Hassan told the AP.
“They assembled the girls and talked to them for some few minutes and left without any confrontation,” said another resident, Kachallah Musa.
The girls were at the general hospital in Dapchi “and the counsellors are there with them,” the information minister told reporters. As with the released Chibok schoolgirls, “they will be quarantined and be counselled before they go back to their schools.”
Their release came a day after an Amnesty International report accused the Nigerian military of failing to heed several warnings of the imminent attack last month. The military has called the report an “outright falsehood.”
Nigeria’s government celebrated the girls’ release. “GREAT NEWS from Dapchi, Yobe State. Thank God for the safe return of our sisters. Alhamdulillah!” an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, said on Twitter.
Nigerian army failed to act before 110 girls abducted
By Susan McFarland
School girls abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 meet Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Nigeria. A report Tuesday by Amnesty International accuses the Nigerian army of failing to act on warnings of another mass abduction last month. File Photo by STR/EPA
UPI -- A report by Amnesty International accuses the Nigerian army of failing to act on "advance warnings" given hours before Boko Haram militants abducted 110 girls from a school last month.
The human rights group alleges the army and police received at least five calls on Feb. 19, warning that gunmen were heading to the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi.
The report says witnesses and residents said they alerted army officials and police after seeing a convoy of gunmen heading toward the school.
Amnesty called for an investigation into the circumstances that led to the abductions of at least 110 girls after Boko Haram stormed the school. The Nigerian army rescued about 80 girls two days later at a border town between Borno and Yobe.
The latest report I can find from Nigeria pegs the number rescued at 76. It seems that rescue is confirmed even while I doubt just about everything that comes out of that corrupt country, and even though major news sources carried this story, it is still doubtful.
"The Nigerian authorities must investigate the inexcusable security lapses that allowed this abduction to take place without any tangible attempt to prevent it," said Osai Ojigho, Amnesty International's Nigeria director.
In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 270 girls from a school in the town of Chibok, and about 20,000 people have been killed since the terrorist group began its insurgency there in 2009.
One of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls was rescued in January and 82 were released in exchange for five top Boko Haram commanders last May. Twenty-one others had previously been freed after negotiations.
"Evidence available to Amnesty International suggests that there are insufficient troops deployed in the area, and that an absence of patrols and the failure to respond to warnings and engage with Boko Haram contributed to this tragedy," Ojigho said.
"The Nigerian authorities have failed in their duty to protect civilians, just as they did in Chibok four years ago. Despite being repeatedly told that Boko Haram fighters were heading to Dapchi, it appears that the police and military did nothing to avert the abduction."
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