Girls rescued from Boko Haram not free
Nigeria may want them kept silent
LAGOS, Nigeria — She was found wandering in a forest, the first of the nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram to escape on her own and reach freedom. That was in May. Since then, Amina Ali Nkeki has been sequestered by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, embraced just once by her family months ago.
Some say Nigeria’s government is keeping the young woman silent because it doesn’t want her telling the world about military blunders in the fight against the Islamic extremist group, or about her desire to be reunited with the father of her child — a detained former Boko Haram commander.
“I worry, sometimes, that I don’t know if she is alive or dead,” her mother, Binta Ali Nkeki, sobbed during an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from her remote northeastern village of Mbalala. She said she hasn’t seen her daughter since July.
Sunday marks days since the Chibok schoolgirls were abducted together from a government boarding school in April 2014. Most of them remain in captivity. The few who have been freed, like Amina, have found themselves not completely free.
The mass kidnapping horrified the world and brought Boko Haram international attention. The failure of Nigeria’s former government to act quickly to free the girls sparked a global Bring Back Our Girls movement; even U.S. first lady Michelle Obama posted a photo with its logo on social media.
Amina was the first of the kidnapped girls to escape on her own. Months later, in October, the government negotiated the release of 21 Chibok girls. Another girl was freed in November in an army raid on an extremist camp in the Sambisa Forest.
On Thursday, one more was found during military interrogations of Boko Haram suspects, along with the baby she had given birth to in captivity.
When Amina’s mother heard last month that “freed” girls would be allowed to come home for Christmas, she borrowed money to reach Chibok, the town where their former boarding school is located.
She was welcomed by the 21 girls, who tried to reassure her that her daughter was “fine, in good health,” even though she had not been allowed to accompany them.
Human rights groups and lawyers have criticized Nigeria’s treatment of the freed girls, who are held in Abuja, the capital, nearly 560 miles from Chibok. The government says the girls are getting medical attention, trauma counseling and rehabilitation.
Officials in the government and the presidency did not respond to requests for comment, following a familiar pattern.
People who have spoken to the freed girls say they have stories the government does not want told, including that three Chibok girls were killed during Nigerian Air Force bombings of Boko Haram camps.
Amina, who is believed to be at least 20 though her uneducated mother says she has no idea, has insisted that her child’s father is a victim, like herself, who was kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced to fight for the insurgents.