On April 14, 2014, 276 girls, aged 12 to 17, were kidnapped at a school in Chibok, Borno state, Nigeria. The kidnapping of Boko Haram sparked outrage worldwide. Many victims have since been released or found.
More than eight years later, two young women were found again. General Christopher Musa, the military commander of the soldiers in the region, said at a press conference that the two women were discovered in two different places on June 12 and 14. “We are very lucky to have found two of the Chibok girls,” it said.
The first woman, Hauwa Joseph, was found with other civilians near Bama on June 12 after the army attacked a Boko Haram camp. Mary Dauda was found two days later near the village of Ngoshe, on the border with Cameroon.
“Nobody took care of us”
“I was nine years old when we were kidnapped at our school in Chibok. I recently got married and had a child,” Hauwa Joseph told reporters. Her husband was killed during the army raid. “We were abandoned, nobody looked after us. We got no food.”
Mary Dauda, who was eighteen when she was kidnapped, says she was forced to marry several Boko Haram fighters but eventually managed to flee. “All the remaining girls from Chibok are married and have children. I left more than twenty in the village where I lived,” she says.
Of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014, 57 managed to escape and 80 were exchanged for Boko Haram commanders during negotiations with authorities.