Daily Nation Newspaper

Lone Nigerian captive refused to convert for Boko Haram

-

LAGOS - The mother of the only Nigerian schoolgirl still in Boko Haram captivity after the extremists released 104 classmates said on Thursday her daughter was blocked from boarding the vehicle to freedom and told to convert to Islam.

Fifteen-year-old Leah refused, Rebecca Sharibu said.

"She was about to board the vehicle that was to bring them back. Then Boko Haram said she should convert," the mother said.

"Her friends said they tried to convince her but she said she will not convert to Islam. Boko Haram said since she will not convert to Islam she should remain behind. That was how they left her. She is alone."

Leah Sharibu asked her departing Muslim classmates to pray for her.

President Muhammadu Buhari confirmed that Sharibu was the only schoolgirl still held by Boko Haram after the extraordin­ary release of the girls on Wednesday and vowed that she "will not be abandoned."

Buhari, himself a Muslim, said "true followers of Islam all over the world respect the injunction that there is no compulsion in religion." He added that he looked forward to meeting with the girls who were freed.

The president's statement had no word on the five girls still unaccounte­d for.

Also on Thursday, the father of one of the five girls said he has been told his daughter and the others are dead.

Inuwa Garba told the AP that friends of his daughter who were freed told him the 16-year-old died from injuries in the frightened stampede that occurred during the mass abduction in Dapchi a month ago.

The Boko Haram extremists brought back the girls they had kidnapped from a boarding school, dropping them off with a warning: "Don't ever put your daughters in school again." Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language.

The abductions in Dapchi have evoked painful memories of the tragedy in Chibok, where 276 girls were kidnapped from their boarding school.

Nearly four years later, about 100 of them have never returned home. Many had been forced to marry their captors and had children fathered by them.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Zambia