Kidnapped girl found with baby
300 taken by Boko Haram in 2014
Maiduguri, Nigeria — Soldiers interrogating captured Boko Haram suspects have found one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram nearly three years ago, along with her baby, Nigeria’s military said Thursday.
Nearly 300 girls were kidnapped by the insurgents from a government boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014, a mass abduction that shocked the world and brought Boko Haram international attention. Most of the girls remain in captivity.
In May, one girl escaped. In October, the government negotiated the release of 21 more. Another girl was freed in November in an army raid on an extremist camp in the Sambisa Forest.
Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman identified the latest girl to be freed as Rakiya Abubakar and said she has a 6-month-old baby. He said her identity was discovered when soldiers were interrogating some of more than 1,000 suspects detained in recent weeks of army raids on the Sambisa Forest.
A statement from Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said her recovery “raises renewed hope that the other captured girls will one day be reunited with their families, friends and community.”
Some 196 remained missing before Thursday’s discovery, though some of the freed girls have said that several in their group have died from things such as malaria and snakebite.