At least one of 276 schoolgirls abducted from a boarding school seven years ago has escaped captivity, Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors UK and Ireland reports.
“One of the Chibok girls who has escaped was able to speak to her father over the phone and has been clearly identified,” said Illia Djadi, Open Doors senior analyst on freedom of religion and belief in sub-Saharan Africa.
The escapee, Hauwa Halima Maigana, came safely into army custody and was able to call her father on a number she remembered after seven years’ captivity.
Other captives may also have escaped, though it is unclear how many are from Chibok.
In April 2014, Boko Haram fighters abducted the mainly Christian students from their school in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok. The mass-kidnapping made headlines across the globe and prompted the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
Henrietta Blyth, Open Doors’s CEO hailed the escape as “a ray of hope” but noted that the girls’s journeys were far from over.
“They need to reintegrate into their community and cope with the trauma of their captivity,” she said.
While Open Doors sources have confirmed that a number of girls have escaped Boko Haram, reports have official sources don’t give a clear picture.
The Chief of Defence Staff in Nigeria, Major General Lucky Irabor has denied that the military have any Chibok girls under their protection.
“We do not have any of the Chibok girls in our custody, so if they are not with us we have nothing to confirm,” he said.
Speaking exclusively to the Catholic Herald’s news desk, Djadi confessed that he was taken aback by the army’s response.
“It’s confusing,” he said, “we know dozens of women have been released.”
“We don’t know why” they responded as they have, he said.
He went on. And while “we want to rejoice” with the parents who have waited for their children for “seven years of anxiety and terribly agony, he warned that the abduction of girls “does not begin and end with Chibok”.
Girls are frequently abducted on their way to school, forcibly converted to Islam and married off. Christian women are particularly threatened for the faith and gender.
“Boko Haram want to establish a caliphate in Nigeria,” Djadi noted, “and the abduction and forcible conversion of Christian women is part of that.”
But, he continued, this phenomenon goes beyond Boko Haram.
In the day to day, Northern Nigerian Christians face harassment and prejudice from their neighbours and are unable to seek legal redress. Quite apart from their lacking the “economic power” to hire a lawyer, Djadi noted, “even if they get to court, they will not be heard”.
Citing the case of Eunice Olawale – the evangelical Christian preacher and mother of seven murdered in Abuja in 2016 whose alleged murderers, a band of Muslim youths, were captured and then quietly by police – Djadie noted a complicit apathy between security forces and officials who share religious affinities with the perpetrators of such persecution.
“There is no justice for Christians,” he said, “impunity is the biggest problem.”
In 2016, Habiba Isiyaku was abducted from Wawar Kazans village, in Katsina province, and married to one of her abductors. Her marriage was reportedly agreed by the Emir of Katsina who was given a dowry by Habiba’s husband-to-be Jamilu Lawal, a member of his palace staff.
Her father Isiyaku Tanku reported the incident to the police commissioner in Katsina and met him and his daughter’s abductor in the chief of police’s office. While the commissioner condemned the abduction, he neither arrested the culprits nor did he release Habiba to her father. When he petitioned the Emir for her release, he was informed that his daughter had been converted to Islam and she would be given in marriage according to Islamic rites”.
“He accused me of defaming him at the police station and I was intimidated and coerced to sign an apology drafted on my behalf by palace officials,” Tanko noted.
Though dozens of Chibok girls have escaped since 2014 and a further 100 were released after negotiations with the government between 2016 and 2017, over 100 remain unaccounted for.
Nigeria is ninth on Open Doors’ World Watch list, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where countries face the most extreme persecution.
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