Militants from the Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram, attacked a girls school in northeastern Nigeria last week, on Monday, February 19. Though there are conflicting reports, anywhere between 50-105 girls are missing. While some have been found, many are still unaccounted for.
The confusion is partially due to a lack of communication between the families and the government. This is the latest of many kidnappings organized by Boko Haram; almost four years ago, the extremist group kidnapped 276 school girls in the town of Chibok.
Boko Haram has been terrorizing Nigeria since its insurgency in 2009, having killed or forced over 20,000 people from their homes. The term “boko haram” translates roughly to “Western education is a sin,” and explains why this group targets school age children.
This past week, kidnappers arrived in the village of Dapachi in machine-gun mounted trucks and began firing. They then made their way to the Government Girls Science and Technical School. Throughout the attack, many students ran into the bushes, other villages, or to their homes in hopes of safety. Many girls were not so lucky.
Witnesses say they watched girls being dragged away by Islamist militants. Two days after the attack, government officials finally broke their silence, stating that they have no credible information on where the kidnapped girls are being held. This lack of communication is reminiscent of the silence after the Chibok attach in 2014.
The Chibok kidnapping is what started the social media campaign #BringBackOurGirls. Around 100 girls are still being held hostage from that attack. It wasn’t until days after the Chibok students were taken that there was a real push to find them by the government.
The slow response of the government has been pinned as a contributor to how Boko Haram was able to escape with many young girls by multiple critics. Yet Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari made the fight against Boko Haram a key issue on his platform for his 2015 election.
After this latest attack, the president’s office issued a statement ordering the leaders of police and civil defense forces to coordinate with the military and governors of Nigerian states in order to “ensure deployment of personnel to all schools”. At this moment, the state government has reported that some of the missing girls from the Government Girls Science and Technical School have been rescued by soldiers and are now in the custody of the Nigerian Army. Hopefully the response to this latest kidnapping will be able to bring back the rest of the missing schoolgirls.