ICC Note:
On the night of April 14, more than 270 predominantly Christian schoolgirls, ages 14-18, were abducted at gunpoint by members of Boko Haram, a radical Islamic insurgency bent on establishing a separate Islamic state to be ruled by Sharia law. Abducted more than 200 days ago, many of those taken from their schooling, friends and loved ones are still being held by their militant captors, in some cases being sold off as child brides into lifetimes of sexual abuse and domestic violence. By the grace of God alone, some were able to escape, and have even made their way to the United States where they are being enrolled in schools and cared for by volunteer host families. Mercy Paul is but one of the lucky few who survived a Boko Haram attack.
11/27/2014 Oregon (NBC) – Warmly welcomed on her first day of school in America, 18-year-old Mercy Paul smiles brightly — showing no sign of her ordeal in northern Nigeria. She’s started a new life at a boarding school in Canyonville, Oregon.
Just seven months ago she was one of the 276 mostly Christian girls kidnapped by Islamist terrorists called Boko Haram.
“There was no way for us to run away,” she says. “They told us they would kill us.”
With a licensed counselor at her side, Mercy tells us how the terrorists set the girls’ school on fire, forced them onto trucks and drove them into the deep forest.
“I jumped,” Mercy says, “not knowing if I would be able to walk or whether I would die.”
Dozens of other girls also escaped, but more than 200 — some seen in this Boko Haram video — did not. The militants’ leader said they had converted to Islam and would be sold “in the market.”
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“In the bible God says that he can talk to people, even in their dreams,” she tells us. “I pray that they find that god is forgiving and merciful and that they stop doing what it is that they’re doing.” — Mercy Paul
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