Two girls who had been missing for eight years were found in mid-June by the Nigerian army during raids against Boko Haram. They were abducted by the Islamist group in April 2014 from a girls’ boarding school in the town of Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria.
“We were abandoned”
Mary Dauda, 26, and Hauwa Joseph, 17, were presented to the press with their babies in their arms. The former students of the “girls of Chibok” group, who became mothers by force, were found by chance on June 12 and 14, in two different places, by Nigerian soldiers who were carrying out raids against Boko Haram bases. Both were nearly 200 kilometers from their boarding school.
“I was 9 when we were taken from our school in Chibok. I recently got married and had this child.”
Hauwa Joseph, former Boko Haram hostage in northeastern Nigeriaat AFP
Like the majority of the hostages, Hauwa was forcibly married off to a member of Boko Haram, the Islamist group that opposes girls’ education deemed perverted by Western values. Her husband and stepfather were killed in an army raid, according to The Guardian Nigeria. She found herself “abandoned” and alone “without food” with her 14 month old son.
“So happy to be back”
Mary’s fate is equally tragic. Kidnapped at 18, she says she was married to several fighters of the group during the years of detention where she lived through hell with other girls. Those who did not pray were “battered” and “hungry”, she says, without specifying whether they were former students of Chibok. Even if she says she is relieved today and “so happy to be back”she thinks of all the students whose lives have changed.
“All the Chibok girls who are still hostages are married and have children. I left more than twenty of them in the Sambisa forest”
Mary Dauda, former Boko Haram hostage in northeast Nigeriaat AFP
Of the 276 students abducted in 2014, 109 girls are still in captivity. The terrible tragedy which had aroused international indignation at the time of the events has become commonplace over the years and kidnappings have become commonplace. Since the Chibok attack on April 14, 2014, more than 1,500 children have been abducted in northern Nigeria by armed groups, according to Amnesty International. 120 students are still in the hands of their captors. They are mostly girls.