Insurgency: Troops rescue two Chibok Girls abducted over eight years ago
The Nigerian Army has said it found and rescued two women who were part of the female students abducted by Boko Haram terrorists from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibiok, Borno State, more than eight years ago.
In a statement on Wednesday, the army disclosed that troops of 202 battalion during clearance operations on 25 July 2022 intercepted four abducted women including two girls kidnapped by Boko Haram from GGSS Chibok on 14 April 2014.
According to the brief statement, the military said the intercepted Chibok girls and their children are currently in a military medical facility.
On the night of the attack in April 2014, 276 female students mostly Christians aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State.
About 57 of the schoolgirls escaped immediately following the incident by jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported, while some others have been rescued by the Nigerian Armed Forces on various occasions.
The outrageous event has stirred global outcry with hopes being raised that the over 200 remaining girls might be released, however there are fears that some girls might have already died while in captivity.
The Chibok Girls abduction is one of several such tragedies that the nation has witnessed in the course of the Boko Haram insurgency.
An investigation by the human rights group, Amnesty International, suggests that since the abduction of the schoolgirls, over 1,500 school children have been kidnapped by armed groups in Nigeria.
“Nigerian is failing to protect vulnerable children. By refusing to respond to alerts of impending attacks on schools across the north of the country, the Nigerian authorities have failed to prevent mass abductions of thousands of school children,” Amnesty International’s Nigeria Director, Osai Ojigho adduced.
According to Amnesty International, the Nigerian government failed to learn from the Chibok incident as to how further crimes of this nature could be curbed.
All hope is not yet lost, at least not in the Chibok community where parents and relatives of the kidnapped girls continue to call for an end to the attacks within the area, as well as a return of the schoolgirls believed to still be in Boko Haram captivity.
In its last press conference in Abuja, the Kibaku Area Development Association (KADA), an association of people from Chibok, lamented that since the outbreak of the insurgency well-over a decade now, the area has been attacked more than 72 times, with over 407 persons killed.
Spokesman for Kada, Dauda Iliya, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue the Chibok community from total annihilation by the Boko Haram terrorists.
Iliya advised the Federal Government to seek support and effectively synergise with the Armed Forces in tackling insecurity within the region.
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