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29 April 2014
Kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls
taken as brides by militants,
relatives told
Relatives say they have been told of mass weddings involving insurgents and some of the girls abducted two weeks ago
Relatives of kidnapped schoolgirls in Chibok. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
For two weeks, retired teacher Samson Dawah prayed for news of his niece Saratu, who was among more than 230 schoolgirls snatched by Boko Haram militants in the north-eastern Nigerian village of Chibok. Then on Monday the agonising silence was broken.
When Dawah called together his extended family members to give an update, he asked that the most elderly not attend, fearing they would not be able to cope with what he had to say. “We have heard from members of the forest community where they took the girls. They said there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko Haram militants,” Dawah told his relatives.
Saratu’s father fainted; he has since been in hospital. The women of the family have barely eaten. “My wife keeps asking me, why isn’t the government deploying every means to find our children,” Dawah said. The marriage reports have not been confirmed officially, and rely on eyewitnesses.
The 14 April abduction of the girls – students aged between 16 and 18 who were sitting a physics paper at their school, one of a handful in troubled Borno state that had opened specially for final exams – shocked a nation inured to violence during a five year-insurgency.
Desperate parents launched their own rescue attempts in the 60,000 sq km Sambisa forest where the girls were being held. Security sources told the Guardian that at least three rescue attempts had been scuppered.
This week, former prime minister Gordon Brown, the United Nations’ special adviser on girls’ education, will visit Nigeria to launch a campaign to raise funds and awareness of the schoolgirls’ plight. “We cannot stop terrorism overnight but we can make sure that its perpetrators are aware that murdering and abducting schoolchildren is a heinous crime that the international authorities are determined to punish,” he said.
Reports of the mass marriage came from a group that meets at dawn each day not far from the charred remains of the school. The ragtag gathering of fathers, uncles, cousins and nephews pool money for fuel before venturing unarmed into the thick forest, or into border towns that the militants have terrorised for months.
On Sunday, the searchers were told that the students had been divided into at least three groups, according to farmers and villagers who had seen truckloads of girls moving around the area. One farmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the insurgents had paid leaders dowries and fired celebratory gunshots for several minutes after conducting mass wedding ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday.
“It’s unbearable. Our wives have grown bitter and cry all day. The abduction of our children and the news of them being married off is like hearing of the return of the slave trade,” said Yakubu Ubalala, whose 17- and 18-year-old daughters Kulu and Maimuna are among the disappeared.
The parents are planning a mass rally on Saturday to lobby the government for official updates rather than having to rely on reports from local people.
Nigeria’s armed forces face an uphill battle against the insurgents, who operate in small, mobile units and are drawn from communities that spill across the country’s porous desert borders. Near daily aerial bombardments have been halted as ground troops have poured into the forest in search of the girls.
“We are trying, but our efforts are being countered in a way that it is very clear they are being tipped off about our movements. Any time we make a plan to rescue [the girls] we have been ambushed,” said an artillery soldier among a rescue team announced by presidential decree over the weekend. In one clash, he said, 15 soldiers were killed by the insurgents.
“We know where these girls are being held in the forest, but every day we go in and come out disappointed. Definitely somebody high up in the chain of command is leaking up information to these people,” said the soldier, whom the Guardian was able to reach three times during shift breaks. Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, said in 2012 that Boko Haram had secret backers among government and security officials.
Another soldier deployed to Borno state said: “In my 13 years of service, I have never been in terrain this big and tough. There is desert and there is forest – you cannot imagine how difficult both of them are.”
He said there had been intelligence reports of the militants moving groups of girls to Marte – a known training camp – and to the Gwoza hills, a range of caves and valleys spanning the border with Cameroon.
The kidnappings have sparked debate on whether foreign intervention could help stabilise Nigeria. Officials have long ruled out such a move.
Nelson Uwaga, a representative at an official conference set up by presidential decree to discuss national unity as Nigeria celebrates a century of nationhood, said: “If countries can help us by way of arming our people through modern surveillance equipment, for defence and all that, it will be most welcome. [But] what the Boko Haram is doing is not a formal kind of fight but a guerrilla kind of fight, and it is only the local people that will tell you how to fight it.”
>via: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/kidnapped-nigerian-schoolgirls-marriage-claims
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Nigerian schoolgirls:
jihadis ‘willing to consider’ release
The jihadis who kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls two weeks ago say they are “willing to consider” the release of those who have not already been trafficked abroad and sold into marriage.
The girls’ abductors, who have been in regular direct contact with a government intermediary, also report that three of their teenaged captives have died – although they did not state how this happened. Eighteen others, they say, are now sick.
The intermediary told Channel 4 News that the al-Qaeda-affiliated group, Boko Haram, has threatened to kill the remaining hostages if there is any attempt by the Nigerian military to rescue the girls. Meanwhile in the capital Abuja, the Nigerian government is coming under intense public pressure to secure the girls’ release.
On Wednesday, the government admitted for the first time that it had officially engaged the services of the negotiator. It declined to reveal his identity. He has told Channel 4 News that he wishes to remain anonymous for reasons of personal security.
The intermediary has, however, been in regular, direct contact with senior members of the Islamist insurgent group who claim to be holding the girls, for several days now. He has maintained links with Boko Haram for nearly a decade and has successfully negotiated past hostage releases.
It is not clear how many of the 220 teenagers remain in Nigeria, following reports that they had been split into smaller groups and some moved into neighbouring Chad and Cameroon and sold for a bride-price of less than £10 each, following their forcible conversion to Islam.
Boko Haram has not as yet claimed responsibility for the mass kidnap, which happened in the town of Chibok in north-eastern Borno State 17 days ago, but the group is considered the only likely perpetrator. The girls were snatched from their dormitories in the small hours of the morning of 15 April. The government secondary school was then set ablaze.
Earlier this week, following initial contact with the intermediary, the abductors had agreed to provide a list of the names of the schoolgirls they claim they’re still holding, as proof of life. So far, they have not delivered this list.
The intermediary, who has relayed the abductors’ demands to Kashim Shettima, Governor of Borno State, told Channel 4 News that Boko Haram is actively “considering a deal” by which most of the girls who remain in Nigeria could be released. The governor is currently in Abuja but could not be reached for comment.
The group did not explain to the intermediary what had happened to the three girls it says had died. It is possible that they were killed while attempting to escape, as 50 of the girls have now done. Reports in other media cite a community elder in Chibok as saying that he too had learned of some deaths, reportedly from snakebites.
But those familiar with the brutal practices of Boko Haram say it is just as likely that the girls had been subjected to extreme sexual violence. This is something of which the girls’ parents as well as women’s groups have expressed grave fears.
Drug-taking among members of the group is commonplace and they are often high on drugs when they launch frenzied attacks. The intermediary told Channel 4 News that the longer the crisis was allowed to drag on, the worse – and more complex – the situation would get.
Hundreds of Nigerian women yesterday marched through the capital, Abuja, demanding urgent government action to secure their release.
This morning, more than 20 members of the Nigerian Senate met President Goodluck Jonathan to discuss the abductions. They demanded daily information briefings from the government and the military to inform the nation as to what was being done to tackle the crisis.
In past crises, members of the Islamist insurgent group, Boko Haram, have executed hostages when the army has launched an attack or rescue-bid and there are fears that with pressure mounting for fast results, military intervention could have tragic results.
‘Western education is forbidden’
Boko Haram has, however, released hostages following negotiations. Most of these have involved the intermediary, whom Channel 4 News has been in contact with since Monday.
Boko Haram claims to be fighting for a strict Sharia state across northern Nigeria. But the guiding influence of Salafist imams has demonstrably waned as the group has fractured and hijacked as an al-Qaeda franchise, with tendrils throughout northwest Africa’s Islamic Maghreb.
Many atrocities – from deadly bomb attacks on soft targets, to assaults on schools, churches and even mosques – are claimed by the Taliban-style group, whose name in the Hausa language translates as “western education is forbidden.”
>via: http://www.channel4.com/news/nigerian-schoolgirls-jihadis-willing-to-consider-release
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#BringBackOurGirls :
My Interview With
One Of The Parents + PHOTOS
There have been several cries in the media and the public in general about the identity of the abducted Chibok girls. Several conspiracy theories have sprung up, and this morning, i was fortunate to interview one of the direct victims involved. His story is deeply moving and the details are quite chilly.
COMFORT BULUS (AGE 16)
His name is Mr Yahi Bwata, his niece was abducted and he has been able to give a first hand account of what really happened at Chibok and the government’s rescue efforts.
According to him, The mood in Chibok is sorrowful and helpless. One of his neighbors has 3 daughters, all abducted by the insurgents.
Listen to the Interview Below:
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May 3, 2014
Please sign petition
to rescue over 200 girls
missing in Nigeria
May 3, 2014 — By signing this petition we declare our solidarity with the kidnapped girls and call upon the world not to forget them, support all efforts to ensure their safe return, and ask President Goodluck Jonathan and the Nigerian Government to ensure all schools are safe places to learn, protected from attack.
In Nigeria, over 200 girls were recently abducted from their boarding school by a terrorist group, Boko Haram, that may be selling them as brides for $12 each. This petition calls on the Nigerian government and all enabled international parties to immediately rescue them.
The abducted 200+ girls are victims of an ongoing conflict within Nigeria that they did not create, and their voices need to be heard. I can only imagine what these 200+ girls have been through, yet the government is not doing nearly enough to save them.
The Boko Haram group, which is believes to be responsible for their abduction, has repeatedly said girls should not be educated. I am a young educated Nigerian who believes every young child regardless of their sex, should not be denied access to education. I believe the Nigerian government must do more to ensure the safe return of these girls.
By signing this petition we declare our solidarity with the kidnapped girls and call upon the world not to forget them, support all efforts to ensure their safe return, and ask President Goodluck Jonathan and the Nigerian Government to ensure all schools are safe places to learn, protected from attack.
Sign the petition here