Kidnapped Chibok girls, three years later: Anguished parents still wait
For three gruelling years Pogu and Yana Galang have waited, desperate for their daughters to return home.
The three girls were among nearly 300 female students kidnapped April 15, 2014, when members of Boko Haram stormed their boarding school in the village of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria during the week of final exams.
The Galangs have parsed numerous rumours and government statements about the captive girls’ well-being. They spotted one daughter, Saratu Ayuba, in images of the hostages that have trickled out from the militants’ hideouts.
When one of the girls from Chibok was found roaming in the forest last year, and a few weeks later, in October, when a group of 21 girls was released, the Galangs listened intently for fresh word of their own daughters’ fate. The girls freed in October told the anxious parents that when they had left their camp, the Galangs’ three daughters were healthy.
That was the last news they have had. They try to console themselves with the fact that they have seen no photographs indicating their daughters are dead.
“The government keeps promising us that our daughters would be rescued,” Yana Galang said. “It’s taking longer than we expected, so the pain persists.”
On Thursday, Nigerian government officials said they were negotiating the release of more of the nearly 200 girls who remain captive. But the government is known for exaggerating its successes against Boko Haram.
The kidnappings of the girls from Chibok created a firestorm on social media, a single act in a rural village that trained the world’s focus on the militant group. Social media and the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag rallied even celebrities to the cause.
It did nothing to change Boko Haram’s murderous ways. Since that day three years ago, the group has burned villages, killed residents and taken the fight to three other nearby nations, forcing nearly 3 million people from their homes.
Many Nigerians fear the girls from Chibok might be used as suicide bombers, but no evidence of this exists. Some former captives have said the girls were separated from other captives and received special treatment like more food. Officials said some of the freed girls told them that a handful of their captive classmates died during childbirth or in military raids on Boko Haram camps.