ICC Note:
In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 220 Girls from the Chibok Community in Nigeria. This abduction gained international attention and support for the victims and their families. Since that time, 103 of the girls have been released by work from the government and international organizations. This means that there are still over 110 girls still in captivity. In a recent development, the girls who were released, shared their diary of time in captivity. It describes the time that they spent in fear and terror, but also their bravery. This also showed that the original abduction was accidental. It was conducted because they botched a robbery on the school.
08/18/2017 Nigeria (Reuters) – The mass abduction of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls from Chibok – the biggest publicity coup of Boko Haram’s jihadist insurgency – was the accidental outcome of a botched robbery, say the girls who spent three years in their brutal captivity.
The Chibok girls made the surprise revelation in secret diaries they kept while held prisoner and a copy of which has been exclusively obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Recalling the night of their kidnapping in April 2014, Naomi Adamu described in the diaries how Boko Haram had not come to the school in Chibok to abduct the girls, but rather to steal machinery for house building. Unable to find what they were looking for, the militants were unsure what to do with the girls.
Arguments swiftly ensued.
“One boy said they should burn us all, and they (some of the other fighters) said: ‘No, let us take them with us to Sambisa (Boko Haram’s remote forest base) … if we take them to Shekau (the group’s leader), he will know what to do'”, Adamu wrote.
She was one of about 220 girls who were stolen from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok one night in April 2014 – a raid that sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls.
Championed by former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama – along with a diverse cast of media celebrities – the campaign won international infamy for Boko Haram and helped galvanize the Nigerian government into negotiating for the girls’ release.
Adamu was among 82 of the Chibok girls released by Boko Haram in May – part of a second wave after 21 of them were freed in October. They are being held in a secret location in Abuja for what the government has called a “restoration process”.
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