page_title: Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping
section_title: Kidnapping
hierarchical_section_title: Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping / Kidnapping
caption_attribution_description: English: This map shows the raid on Chibok Girls Secondary School by Boko Haram on 14 April 2014
context_page_description: On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students were kidnapped from the Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria. 57 of the schoolgirls were rescued by the NA the next few months and some have described their capture in appearances at international human rights conferences. A child born to one of the girls and believed by medical personnel to be about 20 months old also was released, according to the Nigerian president's office.
  Since then hopes were raised on various occasions that the 219 remaining girls might be released. Newspaper reports suggested that Boko Haram was hoping to use the girls as negotiating pawns in exchange for some of their commanders in jail.
  In May 2016, one of the missing girls, Amina Ali, was found. She claimed that the remaining girls were still there, but that six had died. A further 21 girls were freed in October 2016, while another was rescued the next month. Another was found in January 2017. 82 more girls were freed in May 2017.
context_section_description: On the night of 14–15 April 2014, a group of militants attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria, which is a majority Christian village. They broke into the school, pretending to be guards. According to a diary written by two of the girls (Naomi Adamu and Sarah Samuel) the militants had intended to steal an "engine block" and were initially unsure what to do with the girls. They told the girls to get out and come with them. Some girls were loaded into trucks and the rest had to walk several miles until other trucks came to take them away possibly into the Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest where Boko Haram were known to have fortified camps. Houses in Chibok were also burned down in the incident. The school had been closed for four weeks prior to the attack due to the deteriorating security situation, but students from multiple schools had been called in to take final exams in physics.
  There were 530 students from multiple villages registered for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, although it is unclear how many were in attendance at the time of the attack. The children were aged 16 to 18 and were in their final year of school. There was initial confusion over the number of girls kidnapped but on 21 April 2014, parents said 234 girls were missing. A number of the students escaped the kidnappers by jumping off the trucks. According to the police, approximately 276 children were taken in the attack, of whom 53 had escaped as of 2 May.  Other reports said that 329 girls were kidnapped, 53 had escaped and 276 were still missing.
  Amnesty International said it believes the Nigerian military had four hours' advance warning of the kidnapping, but failed to send reinforcements to protect the school. Nigeria's armed forces have confirmed that the Nigerian military had four-hour advance notice of the attack but said that their over-extended forces were unable to mobilize reinforcements.
  Jonathan N.C. Hill of King's College London, has pointed out that Boko Haram kidnapped these girls after coming increasingly under the influence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and asserts that the group's goal is to use girls and young women as sexual objects and as a means of intimidating the civilian population into compliance.  Hill describes the attacks as similar to kidnapping of girls in Algeria in the 1990s and early 2000s.
caption: Map of the Boko Haram raid
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