bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Aisha Musa Maina digs through an old bag looking for memories of her daughter Hauwa, one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped five years ago by Boko Haram militants in northeastern Nigeria.
All she has left are old papers damaged by dust and humidity, a school diploma and a small photograph.

The kidnapping caused the family such suffering and sadness it feels as if they were all abducted, Hauwa’s mother said.
On April 14, 2014, gunmen stormed the Chibok girls’ boarding school, kidnapping 276 pupils aged 12-17, 57 of whom managed to escape by jumping from the trucks.

Their plight moved the world and became a key election issue for President Muhammadu Buhari who was elected a year later on the promise of defeating Boko Haram and returning the girls safe and sound.
After negotiations with Boko Haram, 107 of the girls either escaped, were released in exchange for prisoners or were recovered by the army.
Hauwa is one of the 112 girls about whom there has been no news.
Her family wonders whether their daughter is still alive or was killed in a Nigerian army bombing, a claim made by the extremists.
She might have died from hunger or disease, given the army’s long-term policy of blocking the group’s supplies. She might even have been converted to the group’s radical beliefs.
In a propaganda video broadcast by Boko Haram in January 2018, 14 women claiming to be Chibok girls, three of whom held babies, told their families they would not be coming home.
Thanking the leader of the group Abubakar Shekau, who “married us off” they said: “We are the Chibok girls that you cry for … [but] by the grace of Allah, we will not return to you.”

News is scarce in this small, remote town where the literacy rate is very low.
Hauwa’s father Musa Maina has no idea what has happened to his daughter, although he insists he has not lost hope.
“We heard that some parents were reunited with their daughters but ours [is] still yet to come back home,” he said.
“We aren’t losing hope but we are appealing to government to invest more effort to bring back our girls and reunite us,” he said.
Elsewhere in the country, expectations of finding the girls are low.
At a big traffic junction in the centre of the economic capital Lagos, drivers no longer pay attention to their pictures hung along the railings.

Five years ago the “Bring back our girls” slogan – fuelled by social media and former US first lady Michelle Obama – was a powerful rallying cry.
Now, the girls’ plight takes its place alongside the many other tragedies in this country of 190 million plagued by crime and conflict.

Boko Haram has also grown in strength over the past year, after being weakened during the first years of Buhari’s presidency – he was reelected for a second term in February.
Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the IS-linked faction of Boko Haram, has increased its deadly attacks on military bases, killing several hundred Nigerian army soldiers.
Last year on the fourth anniversary of the Chibok kidnapping, the UN children’s agency said more than 1,000 other children had also been kidnapped by extremists since 2013.
In 2016, Human Rights Watch put the number of young boys – some as young as five – in the hands of the group at up to 10,000.
Some of these children are believed to have been released and sent to deradicalisation centres as the Nigerian army made inroads into Boko Haram territory.
Whatever their fate, and that of the Chibok girls, a decade of conflict has taken a heavy toll.
The Boko Haram insurgency has claimed 27,000 lives in Nigeria where nearly two million people still cannot return to their homes and also spilled over into neighbouring countries Niger, Chad and Cameroon.


US arrests suspect in 2012 Benghazi consulate attack, Bondi says

Survivors recount terror of Nigeria massacre where people were burned inside houses

Gaza’s violent reality: hundreds have been killed since October ceasefire

Gunmen massacre nearly 200 in Nigeria attacks, some bound and executed

Islamic militancy

Five years after Boko Haram kidnapping, 112 Chibok girls still missing

A picture of Kabu, one of the abducted girls, being held by her mother Zainabu Mala on April 12, 2019 in Chibok. Photo: AFP

Musa Maina holds a picture of her kidnapped daughter, Hauwa, on April 12, 2019 in Chibok. - In February 2018, the group Boko Haram seized 110 schoolgirls from Dapchi, in an echo of the 2014 abduction of more than 200 from Chibok that brought world attention to the conflict. More than 27,000 people have been killed since the Boko Haram conflict began in 2009 and some 1.8 million others are still displaced. (Photo by Audu Ali MARTE / AFP)

A man drives his scooter past portraits of some of the 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram Jihadists five years ago at Falomo roundabout in Lagos, on April 13, 2019. - Civil societies and rights activists have line up activities across the country to mark the April 14, 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the Government Girls Secondary School at the remote town of Chibok in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, which brought global attention to the conflict that has left more than 27,000 people dead since the Boko Haram conflict began in 2009. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP)

A man poses with a sign in front of police officers in riot gear during a demonstration calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped girls of the government secondary school in Chibok, in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Scores of protesters marched chanting "Bring Back Our Girls" kidnapped six months ago by Boko Haram. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga)

Youtube capture of Chibok Girls Explain Why They Refused To Return To Their Parents. Photo: Youtube

A picture taken on February 28, 2018 at the deserted students boarding of Government Girls Technical College at Dapchi town in northern Nigerian, shows personal effects abandoned by fleeing students litter after Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped 110 school girls. Nigeria's government on March 1 said it had set up a committee to establish how Boko Haram jihadists managed to kidnap 110 girls from their school in the country's remote northeast. Members of the militant Islamist group stormed the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe state, on February 19, nearly four years after a similar mass abduction in Chibok, Borno state. / AFP PHOTO / AMINU ABUBAKAR

A frame from a video released on January 15, 2018 by Islamist militant group Boko Haram showing at least 14 of the schoolgirls abducted from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014. Photo: AFP/Boko Haram

‘I have a husband. I’m happy where I am’: the kidnapped Chibok girl who refused to go home

Some of the recently released girls from Chibok wait in Abuja on Monday. Photo: AFP

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari smiles as he welcomes a group of Chibok girls, who were held captive for three years by the millitant group Boko Haram, in Abuja, Nigeria, May 7, 2017. Bayo Omoboriowo/Presidential Office/Handout via Reuters TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.

A group of 82 Chibok girls, who were held captive for three years by Islamist militants, wait to be released in exchange for several militant commanders, near Kumshe, Nigeria May 6, 2017. Picture taken May 6, 2017. REUTERS/Zanah Mustapha TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Kidnapped with 218 classmates, Chibok schoolgirl Amina has been rescued - and now she has a daughter of her own

This handout picture taken in Damboa and released by the Nigerian army shows Amina Ali with her daughter Safiya. Photo: AFP

This handout picture taken in Damboa and released by the Nigerian army on May 18, 2016 shows a suspected Boko Haram member, Mohammed Hayatu who claimed to be the husband of Amina Ali, one of the 219 girls abducted from their school in Chibok more than two years ago. Soldiers and civilian vigilantes were deployed at Baale, near the town of Damboa, and "rescued one Miss Amini Ali and a suspected Boko Haram terrorist, Mohammed Hayatu, who claimed to be her husband", army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement. / AFP PHOTO / STRINGER / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / Nigeria's army / Stringer" - NO MARKETING - NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

FILE - In this Monday, May. 12, 2014, file image taken from video by Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist network, shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. Soldiers have found one of the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram from a boarding school in Chibok town, her uncle said Wednesday, May. 18, 2016 describing her as pregnant and traumatized but otherwise fine. Amina Ali Nkeki is the first of the 219 so-called Chibok girls to be freed since the mass abduction that grabbed attention around the world more than two years ago. (AP Photo/File)

82 Chibok schoolgirls freed in Nigeria three years after abduction by Boko Haram militants shocked the world

School girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok in 2014. File photo: AP

epa05948567 A handout photo made available by The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, Swtzerland, 07 May 2017 showing some of the ICRC vehicles transporting the 82 released Nigerian, Chibok, school girls to the Banki military base, Nigeria. Media reports on 07 May state that 82 schoolgirls part of the 276 youngsters Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group, abducted in north-eastern Nigeria three years ago have been freed on 06 May 2017 in after negotiations in exchange for Boko Haram suspects held by the Nigerian authorities. The ICRC acted as a neutral intermediary, and the ICRC transported the 82 ChibokGirls to the government of Nigeria. EPA/ICRC / HANDOUT MANDATORY CREDIT: ICRC HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

(FILES) -- A screengrab taken on October 2, 2014 from a video released by the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and obtained by AFP shows the leader of the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau. Boko Haram has seized the town of Chibok in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, from where 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped more than six months ago, a local pastor and a senator told AFP on November 14, 2014. "Chibok was taken by Boko Haram. They are in control," said Enoch Mark, a Christian pastor whose daughter and niece are among the 219 teenagers still being held. Mark and the senator for southern Borno, Ali Ndume, said the militants attacked at about 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on November 13, destroying communications masts and forcing residents to flee. AFP PHOTO / HO / BOKO HARAM = RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / BOKO HARAM" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS =

(FILES) This file photo taken on October 19, 2016 shows 21 Chibok girls who were released by Boko Haram a week before, attending a meeting with the Nigerian President at the State House in Abuja, Nigeria. At least 80 schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria in 2014 have been released, security sources, a senior minister and the father of two of them told AFP on May 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Philip OJISUA

News

World

Africa

Despite politician pledges to rescue them, they are still missing and their cause lost among other tragedies in a country plagued by crime and conflict


Despite politician pledges to rescue them, they are still missing and their cause lost among other tragedies in a country plagued by crime and conflict.


Crime

Five years after Boko Haram kidnapping, 112 Chibok girls still missing

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Despite politician pledges to rescue them, they are still missing and their cause lost among other tragedies in a country plagued by crime and conflict

Despite politician pledges to rescue them, they are still missing and their cause lost among other tragedies in a country plagued by crime and conflict