By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

ABUJA, Nigeria – 230 Nigerian schoolgirls were abducted last week from their school. Forty have managed to escape, but 190 are still missing. Boko Haram, an Islamist group, is suspected to be behind the kidnapping but have not issued a statement.

 

The kidnapping occurred after the Boko Haram extremists stormed a remote boarding school in northeast Nigeria.

At the scene of the attack, in Chibok, parents wept begging the kidnappers to “have mercy on our daughters” and for the government to rescue them.

Borno state education Commissioner and the principal of the boarding school stated that students were at the school to take a physics exam when the abduction occurred.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a bombing near Nigeria’s capital of Abuja that left dozens of people dead; although this bombing occurred on the same day as the kidnapping, they have not taken responsibility for the kidnapping.

This year alone, Boko Haram is believed to have killed over 1,500 people.

Boko Haram’s name means: “Western education is forbidden.” They are fighting to establish Islamic law in Nigeria and often target educational establishments.

The forty girls that escaped from the group escaped on their own. None were rescued by the military.

“I have not seen my daughter, she is a good girl,” cried Musa Muka, whose 17-year-old Martha was taken away. “We plead with the government to help rescue her and her friends; we pray nothing happens to her.”

Those who have escaped say they jumped out of the back of a truck in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday. Others ran away and hid in the dense forest.

Although this mass abduction is extraordinary, violence in the area has been on the rise.

The most prevalent area for the danger is in northeastern Nigeria, which have been under a state of emergency since mid-May of last year due to persistent bloodshed that is claimed to be by Boko Haram.

The military believes that the militants took the girls to the Sambisa forest near the Cameroonian border. Parents and vigilante groups have gone there in search of the girls.

This mass abduction is an embarrassment to the military who claimed that they rescued all of the girls except eight. They later retracted the statement.

“The operation is going on and we will continue to deploy more troops,” Major General Olukolade, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said. Further, he stated that the air and land patrols are hunting for the students.

For more information, please visit:
BBC News – Chibok abductions in Nigeria: ‘More than 230 seized’ – 21 April 2014
Times Live – 230 schoolgirls still missing after Boko Haram raid – 22 April 2014
CNN – Boko Haram leader claims bombing, stays mum on kidnapped schoolgirls – 19 April 2014
The Frontier Post – More girls \’flee kidnappers\’ – 22 April 2014
The Daily Star – 230 girls abducted in Nigeria still missing – 22 April 2014
The Boston Globe – Parents contest Nigeria kidnap figure – 22 April 2014