Page 10 The Skanner January 11, 2017
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Free from Boko Haram, Nigeria’s Chibok Girls are Kept Silent
By MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press
LAGOS, Nigeria — She
was found wandering
in a forest, the first of
the nearly 300 Chibok
schoolgirls kidnapped by
Boko Haram to escape on
her own and reach free-
dom. That was in May.
Since then, Amina Ali
Nkeki has been seques-
tered by Nigeria’s intelli-
gence agency, embraced
just once by her family
months ago.
Some say Nigeria’s
government is keeping
the young woman silent
because it doesn’t want
her telling the world
about military blunders
in the fight against the
Islamic extremist group,
or about her desire to be
reunited with the father
of her child — a detained
former Boko Haram com-
mander.
“I worry, sometimes,
that I don’t know if she
is alive or dead,” her
mother, Binta Ali Nkeki,
sobbed during an exclu-
sive telephone interview
with The Associated
Press from her remote
northeastern village of
Mbalala. She said she
hasn’t seen her daughter
since July.
Sunday marks 1,000
days since the Chibok
schoolgirls were abduct-
ed together from a gov-
ernment boarding school
in April 2014. Most of
them remain in captivity.
The few who have been
freed, like Amina, have
found themselves not
completely free.
The mass kidnapping
horrified the world and
brought Boko Haram in-
ternational
attention.
The failure of Nigeria’s
former government to
act quickly to free the
girls sparked a global
Bring Back Our Girls
Obituary: Clinton E. Martin
Memorial service for
Clinton E. Martin
will be held at
Eastside Baptist Church
3575 Portland Avenue
Tacoma, WA 98404
Saturday, January 28, 2017
movement; even U.S. first
lady Michelle Obama
posted a photo with its
logo on social media.
Amina was the first of
the kidnapped girls to es-
cape on her own. Months
later, in October, the
government negotiated
the release of 21 Chibok
girls. Another girl was
freed in November in an
army raid on an extrem-
ist camp in the Sambisa
Forest.
On Thursday, one more
was found during mil-
itary interrogations of
Boko Haram suspects,
along with the baby she
had given birth to in cap-
tivity.
When Amina’s moth-
er heard last month that
“freed” girls would be al-
lowed to come home for
Christmas, she borrowed
money to reach Chibok,
the town where their for-
mer boarding school is
located.
She was welcomed by
the 21 girls, who tried
to reassure her that
her daughter was “fine,
in good health,” even
though she had not been
allowed to accompany
them.
Human rights groups
and lawyers have criti-
cized Nigeria’s treatment
of the freed girls, who are
held in Abuja, the capital,
AP PHOTO/AZEEZ AKUNLEYAN, FILE
Most of the 1,000 kidnapped school girls remain
captive, but many of those ‘freed’ are now held by
the government
In this Thursday, May. 19, 2016 file photo, Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari, second right, greets
Amina Ali, left, the first rescued Chibok schoolgirl, at the Presidential palace in Abuja, Nigeria. She was
found wandering in a forest, the first of the nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram to
escape on her own and reach freedom. Since then, Amina Ali Nkeki has been sequestered by Nigeria’s
secret intelligence agency. Sunday Jan. 8, 2017 marks 1,000 days since the mass kidnapping, and most of
the Chibok schoolgirls remain in captivity.
nearly 900 kilometers
(560 miles) from Chibok.
The government says the
girls are getting medical
attention, trauma coun-
seling and rehabilitation.
Officials in the govern-
ment and the presiden-
cy did not respond to
requests for comment,
following a familiar pat-
tern.
People who have spo-
ken to the freed girls say
they have stories the gov-
ernment does not want
told, including that three
Chibok girls were killed
during Nigerian Air
Force bombings of Boko
Haram camps.
Amina, who is believed
to be at least 20 though
her uneducated mother
says she has no idea, has
insisted that her child’s
father is a victim, like
herself, who was kid-
napped by Boko Haram
and forced to fight for the
insurgents.
Binta says that when
her daughter was res-
cued — hunters found
Amina, her 4-month-old
baby girl and the father
in a forest — she said she
didn’t want to go back
to school. But her moth-
er and brother, Noah,
persuaded her to take
up Nigerian President
Muhammadu Buhari’s
promise to give her the
best education possible.
“They told her that
soon she will be starting
school,” Noah Ali Nkeki
told the AP in an inter-
view. He got the news in
a rare phone call from
his sister on Thursday,
the first time he had
heard from her in three
months.
He cannot call her.
Officials call him using
a blocked number and
then put Amina on the
line. The girl’s mother
doesn’t get to speak to
her because she doesn’t
own a cellphone and re-
ception in her village is
poor.
“I don’t know what the
government is trying to
do. They have had her
now for seven months,”
Noah said.
Binta, a gaunt woman
whose eyes mirror the
pain of a hard life and
whose hands are rough
from farming, was wid-
owed five years ago. Elev-
en of her children have
died, in childbirth or
soon afterward. Abina
and Noah are all she has.
“I wonder how my only
grandchild is doing,” she
said of Amina’s daughter,
Safia. “Do you think she’s
walking by now?”
Binta was suicidal after
her daughter’s kidnap-
ping, community leaders
have told the AP. There
were reports Boko Ha-
ram threatened to sell
the kidnapped girls into
slavery, marry them
off to fighters and force
them to convert to Islam.
Chibok is a Christian en-
clave in mainly Muslim
northern Nigeria.
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