Witness to Boko Haram terror: Nigeria's missing schoolgirls - CNN.com On April 14, Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria A CNN team made the dangerous journey to the village in Boko Haram's heartland CNN correspondent Nima Elbagir spoke to a girl who fled, mothers of abductees and other villagers She accompanied villagers armed with machetes on their night-time patrol of the area (CNN) -- The militants pulled into the northeastern Nigerian village of Chibok under cover of darkness, their target a girls' boarding school filled with students ahead of final year exams. Armed and wearing military uniforms, they told the girls they were there to protect them. The girls started to assemble in the yard as ordered to, not realizing the men were from Boko Haram -- the group whose name roughly translates as "Western education is sin" -- until it was too late. More than 200 were loaded onto trucks and spirited away: the group's leader later announced that he would sell them.

Map: Nima Elbagir's route to Chibok Map: Nima Elbagir's route to Chibok Since the mass abduction on April 14, the world's attention has been focused on Chibok, but CNN was the first global news organization to send a team to the scene of the atrocity. The journey from the relative safety of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, to the remote countryside stalked by Boko Haram can take eight to 10 hours, but logistics and security concerns meant that it took CNN international correspondent Nima Elbagir's team four days to complete the trek. For most of the route, the road was tarmacked and the team constantly stopped at checkpoints manned by the military, police or vigilantes looking out for militants. But for the final 45 minutes the tarmac and checkpoints disappeared and the team swerved through the bleak, potholed landscape at full speed with flak jackets beside them. Read more: The road to Boko Haram's heartland Some girls managed to escape Boko Haram, making a desperate dash for freedom after the militants loaded them into cargo trucks. "We would rather die than go," one of those girls told CNN.

With fear in her eyes and voice, the young woman, who asked not to be identified, described what happened on that horrendous night. Read more: Escaped schoolgirl describes ordeal Families had sent their girls to Chibok Girls Secondary School for a desperately needed education but Boko Haram's attack left the school a burned-out shell. Chibok is part of Borno state, where 72% of primary-age children never attended school, according to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. The militants destroyed everything they could at the school. One of the girls who managed to flee said their attack had ended both her education and dreams of becoming a doctor. Read more: How Boko Haram cripples children's future Outrage over the mass abduction has prompted a global campaign, calling for the girls to be freed through the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. But in Chibok the outrage is overlaid with despair. CNN's Nima Elbagir spoke to the mothers of two of the missing schoolgirls. They described hearing gunfire before discovering their daughters had been taken away. The kidnapping has left an indelible mark on Chibok. During the day, it looks like a normal village. But at night the fear and terror is visible.

The women, elderly and children go to sleep -- and the young men stay awake, doing patrols, keeping vigil. The men arm themselves with whatever they can -- machetes, homemade bow and arrows, in the hope that they will be able to protect their families. CNN's team joined them. Read more: Boko Haram threat keeps village awake Nima and her crew returned to Nigeria's capital, Abuja, safely. Around the world, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign continues and foreign governments including the United States, Britain, France, Israel and China have offered help to Nigeria's government find the girls. But the schoolgirls are still missing, their relatives still praying for their return and the residents of Chibok still haunted by the attack that left them cowering in the bush as Boko Haram plundered their village. Full coverage of CNN international correspondent Nima Elbagir's Chibok journey will screen on CNN International on Saturday 17 May at 2100 CET, Sunday 18 May at 0030 CET, 0400 CET and 1200 CET and Monday 19 May at 0730 CET.

Part of complete coverage on Chibok: the village that lost its daughters to Boko Haram | World news | The Guardian Nigeria Chibok: the village that lost its daughters to Boko Haram In village in north-eastern Nigeria people feel abandoned by a government that has failed to rescue 200 kidnapped schoolgirls A boy holds up a photo of his 19-year-old sister, Deborah Solomon, one of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants. Photograph: Chika Oduah Thursday 15 May 2014 10.01 EDT First published on Thursday 15 May 2014 10.01 EDT Close This article is 2 years old Asabe Kwambura is getting tired of waiting. Sitting under a young mango tree alongside the charred remains of her school, the headteacher looks around nervously. It's not safe to be out here in one of the most dangerous parts of north-eastern Nigeria , but the government has promised to send a team to investigate the kidnapping of more than 200 pupils from her school and she wants to greet them in person. "These are our girls," she says.

"They are from Chibok." She punctuates her words by pointing to the ground. "They are from here." Around her are abandoned desks and burnt out classrooms destroyed when Boko Haram militants stormed the Chibok government girls secondary school a month ago, loading the girls into lorries and driving them away. Kwambura's face is drawn and tired. The kidnapping has left its mark on everyone in this remote settlement, which has been living under a state of emergency since Boko Haram stepped up its attacks more than a year ago. Yerima Pudza, Asabe Kwambura and Bulama Modu sit under a tree at the campus of the government girls secondary school in Chibok where over 200 girls were kidnapped. Photograph: Chika Oduah Mohammed Dunoma, the chairman of the local parent-teachers association, says many villagers are now reluctant to allow their daughters to go to school. Boko Haram, whose name means "western education is sinful", is an ever-present threat, he says: "We don't know when they will come." This is a close-knit community, and it is in mourning.

Esther Yakubu's 15-year-old daughter, Dorcas, is one of the missing girls. She is furious with the government for failing to come to her aid. "What about us living in Chibok? Are we not people too?" she asks. "They abandoned us. Just because we live in the villages." Asked if she believes the rumours that the girls may have crossed the border into Cameroon and been forced to marry their abductors , she shakes her head vehemently. "No, no. They are in Nigeria," she says, holding a photo of Dorcas wearing a blue dress. The picture, taken the day before she was kidnapped, was supposed to be a gift to Dorcas for completing secondary school. A picture of Dorcas Yakubu taken a day before she was kidnapped. Photograph: Chika Oduah Dorcas's sister, Happy, says she is not afraid of Boko Haram. "I just want my sister to come back," she says.

Away from Chibok, the social media campaign to #bringbackourgirls has generated more than one million tweets and swelled into a global outcry, with famous figures including Angelina Jolie, Malala Yousafzai and Michelle Obama joining the calls for Nigeria's government to recover the remaining girls. But here there is no electricity or internet access, and little awareness that the world's attention is focused at its door. The oldest man in the village, Bitrus Dawa, known locally as Badalu, has not heard about the global search effort for the girls he describes as "my daughters". Dawa, who says he was born in 1910 and can remember the first time he saw white men in 1923, shakes his head as he laments a government "fraught with corruption" that has not been able to eliminate Boko Haram. Beyond the village, the wide trunks of baobab trees cast shadows across the Sahelian landscape where the Sambisa game reserve stretches ominously. Many Chibok residents believe their daughters are in one of Boko Haram's encampments in the Sambisa bush. "We went inside the Sambisa to look for them," says Lawan Zanna.

Hoping to find his 18-year-old daughter Aisha, the 45-year-old father of nine said he had joined more than 100 others three days after the abduction. Along the way, villagers from nearby areas told them they had seen Boko Haram militants with the girls. Zanna said he wanted to continue following the abductors' tracks, "But they told us told us, 'don't follow them. They will kill you'." Despite Boko Haram's threats, Zanna says he will keep his seven daughters in school. "Even the Qur'an tells us that knowledge is obligatory." Since the abduction, Chibok's local government has introduced a curfew, outlawing all driving after 6pm. The village has deployed its own civilian force of fighters to defend the area. Bulus Mungo Park, a 38-year-old civil servant who says two of his nieces are among the kidnapped, is one of them. A volunteer in the national vigilante association, Mungo Park says the local force is about 300 strong. "We must fight this Boko Haram and we will win," he says. Bulus Mungo Park is a volunteer vigilante fighter defending Chibok.

Photograph: Chika Oduah With a hunting gun strapped around his tall shoulders, Mungo Park escorted a convoy of girls who escaped from Boko Haram to the state capital of Maiduguri on Tuesday. Local authorities had invited them to watch the latest video released by the militants to help identify the girls shown. The journey to Maiduguri from Chibok is an 80-mile (130km) stretch of abandoned villages razed by Boko Haram's insurgency. Drivers on this road are careful to avoid stopping between the regular military checkpoints inspecting all passers by. At the checkpoints, soldiers and civilian fighters call out suspicious-looking men and ask them to stand in a line. One by one they lift the men's fingers, looking for tell-tale signs of heavy gun usage. "This is the situation we are in now because of the Boko Haram," says Mungo Park. The road runs alongside the Sambisa bush, and locals say Boko Haram fighters often cross this way, shooting at cars as they go. For 18-year-old Lydia Pogu, her brush with Boko Haram ended with a dramatic getaway.

With a friend, Lydia managed to jump out one of the lorries after it succumbed to mechanical failures. "I escaped. They didn't know I jumped," she says. She ran into the bushes, leaving behind Aisha Zanna, Dorcas Yakubu, Deborah Solomon and more than 200 other classmates. But now she's too afraid to go back to school. She says she wants to be a farmer and tend to a small plot of land with her mother, a sturdy woman who speaks little English and smiles often at her daughter. Lydia Pogu escaped Boko Haram abductors by jumping out of a truck. She said she does not want to go back to school but wants to be a farmer. Photograph: Chika Oduah Lydia says she will not be happy until her classmates return. She locks the doors of the small family home as Chibok settles for the night. Store fronts are closed. Chickens and goats retreat into wooden stalls. Kwambura and her colleagues give up their wait for the day. Another day has gone by, the girls are still missing and the government delegation has not come to help. Months after #BringBackOurGirls, Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds more children.

Local officials kept it quiet. - LA Times Months after #BringBackOurGirls, Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds more children. Local officials kept it quiet. Boko Haram abductions AFP/Getty Images The mother of a girl abducted by Boko Haram takes part in a rally in Abuja, Nigeria, in January 2016. The mother of a girl abducted by Boko Haram takes part in a rally in Abuja, Nigeria, in January 2016. (AFP/Getty Images) Aminu Abubakar and Robyn Dixon Contact Reporter The children had gone off to school and the traders were still arranging their goods at the village market in the remote fishing town of Damasak when the Islamic fighters swept in, shooting as they pushed straight for the schoolhouses. By the time the Boko Haram invaders were done, at least 400 people had vanished, many of them children. The Monday morning invasion in November 2014 was reminiscent of the attack seven months earlier when the terrorist group stormed the village of Chibok, kidnapping hundreds of girls, shooting residents and burning homes. When the savagery of that attack became known, it sparked a sense of global urgency and drew worldwide condemnation.

But this time, after the children of Damasak were whisked away and the survivors were left to bury the dead, there was only silence. Now, on the eve of the second anniversary of the attack on Chibok, the raw details of what happened in Damasak, elsewhere in Borno state, are emerging in interviews with survivors, village leaders and government officials, most so afraid of reprisals that they refuse to be named. “I'm in agony because those children taken, especially my 16 nephews, are like my own children,” one local chief said. “I feel like a bereaved father.” As hundreds of bodies were found in Damasak this month, Gana Mustapha, a spokesman for the Borno state governor, described the attack as horrific. He told local media that “the level of devastation in Damasak is high. We have seen hundreds of people that were massacred by Boko Haram.” As with Chibok, most of those kidnapped in Damasak have not been found. Battling Boko Haram in West Africa. The similarities between the two raids, however, would seem to end there.

Backed by the U.S., efforts have been made to find the children of Chibok. But a new Human Rights Watch report concludes that there's little evidence Nigerian security forces even made a serious effort to locate the Damasak victims. The Chibok abduction generated so much heat that local officials and leaders in Damasak kept quiet about what happened there, even denying the incident when contacted by journalists at the time. “My 7-year-old child was among the children kidnapped,” a government official in a Maiduguri camp for displaced people said in a phone interview. “The Boko Haram abductors struck nine days after I enrolled my child in the school.” For years, Boko Haram has rampaged across northeastern Nigeria, occupying towns and villages, taking advantage of the weak government and an army that was often unwilling to fight. Beyond the mayhem, its stated mission is to impose Islamic rule and oppose all Western influence, from banks to secular education. It draws its fighters and support mainly from Kanuri people, an ethnic group in northeastern Nigeria, northern Cameroon and southeastern Niger who have long felt marginalized by governments. The militants tend to attack on market days, when villages are filled with farmers, fishermen and traders.

They storm in on motorbikes and in SUVs and armed personnel carriers, roaring up to the market squares, government headquarters and police stations and gunning down the men and boys. Even given Boko Haram's capacity for violence, the attack in Damasak was chilling. Nigeria: 'Boko Haram' attack villages near Chibok - BBC News BBC News Nigeria: 'Boko Haram' attack villages near Chibok 29 June 2014 Image copyright AFP Image caption Boko Haram seeks to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria Four villages in north-eastern Nigeria have been attacked by suspected Boko Haram militants who targeted at least one church. The bodies of at least 40 civilians and six militants have been recovered, a local vigilante has told the BBC. It is the latest assault on villages near Chibok, the town where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted in April. Hundreds of villagers have been killed in similar attacks in the region by Boko Haram in recent months. A state of emergency is in force in northern Nigeria because of the group's increasingly violent campaign to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.

Attacks in the Chibok area eight days earlier were feared to have left dozens of villagers dead. Media captionThe BBC's Will Ross: "We are hearing reports of totally deserted villages" Bows and arrows Smoke was billowing from our town as I left Samuel Chibok, Survivor of attack An eyewitness said Kautikari village, a short distance from Chibok, was almost deserted, with bodies of civilians and Boko Haram fighters on the streets. The insurgents were there for at least four hours, setting fire to homes and shooting sporadically. Vigilantes armed with bows and arrows and hunting rifles have been trying to defend the village from such attacks. One of the survivors said some 20 men arrived in a pick-up truck and on motorbikes, Reuters reported. "Initially I thought they were military but when I came out, they were firing at people. I saw people fleeing and they burned our houses," Samuel Chibok was quoted as saying. "Smoke was billowing from our town as I left." The BBC's Will Ross, in the commercial capital Lagos, says a Nigerian air force plane has been seen flying over the area.

However, residents of these extremely vulnerable villages often complain that there are not nearly enough soldiers deployed in the area and they have been calling on the government to arm the vigilante force, our correspondent adds. AFP news agency named the other villages targeted as Kwada, Ngurojina and Karagau. According to one account from Kwada, a number of churches there were attacked during Sunday services and worshippers killed before the militants went on to Kautikari. Who are Boko Haram?

Image copyright AFP Image caption Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been designated a terrorist by the US government Founded in 2002 Initially focused on opposing Western education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja Some three million people affected Declared terrorist group by US in 2013 Nigeria Islamists attack village near Chibok, 10 dead-witnesses Nigeria Islamists attack village near Chibok, 10 dead-witnesses By Lanre Ola Pin it Share Weapons and ammunition seized from suspected members of Islamist rebel force Boko Haram are displayed during a military patrol in Hausari village, near Maiduguri June 5, 2013. REUTERS/Joe Brock More By Lanre Ola MAIDUGURI Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 10 people on Sunday in an attack on a Nigerian village less than 5 km.

(3 miles) from Chibok, the scene of a mass abduction of more than 200 school girls in April, survivors said. In a separate assault on Friday evening, the insurgents killed seven soldiers in the village of Goniri, in Yobe state, a security source and witnesses said. Violence in Nigeria's northeast has been relentless in the past year, and has gained in intensity since April, the month that more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched by Boko Haram rebels from Chibok. Efforts to free them, which have attracted Western support, have so far not succeeded. Samuel Chibok, a survivor of the attack on Kautikiri village, in the Chibok community, said that around 20 men in a Toyota pick-up truck and motorcycles rolled into town. "Initially I thought they were military but when I came out, they were firing at people. I saw people fleeing and they burned our houses," he said, adding that some people had died in the attack, including two of his relatives.

"Smoke was billowing from our town as I left." A local pro-government vigilante, who declined to be named, said residents had so far recovered 10 bodies from the village. Boko Haram, which is fighting for an Islamic state in largely Muslim northern Nigeria, has killed thousands since launching an uprising on 2009, and many hundreds in the past three months. It is by far the biggest security threat to Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer, and has overshadowed government efforts to project an image of Nigeria as prospective economic giant and massive investment prospect. An explosion on Friday night in a brothel in the northeastern Nigerian city of Bauchi killed 11 people and wounded 28, police said on Saturday, an attack also believed to be the work of Boko Haram. [ID:L6N0P907L] A military operation in the northeast has so far failed to quell the rebellion and has triggered reprisal attacks that are increasingly targeting civilians, after they formed vigilante groups to try to help the government flush out the militants. But their tactics - often striking then fleeing over the border into Cameroon - have repeatedly proved devastating. They are well armed and funded by a lucrative kidnapping operation.

In Friday night's attack on a military outpost, suspected Boko Haram fighters arrived in four armoured personel carriers and 11 hilux trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, said a security source and a witness who gave his name only as Hamisu. "They were all dressed in full military but they did not direct their onslaught on the civilian population," Hamisu said by telephone. The militants are extending their reach beyond their remote northeastern heartlands. A bomb in an upmarket shopping district of the capital Abuja killed 21 people on Wednesday, the third attack on the capital in three months. President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigeria had entered one of the darkest phases of its history during a visit to the scene of the Abuja blast on Friday.

[ID:L6N0P83N2] Reblog Nigerian Islamists attack villages, churches near Chibok, dozens killed | Reuters Sun Jun 29, 2014 | 3:18 PM EDT Nigerian Islamists attack villages, churches near Chibok, dozens killed By Lanre Ola | MAIDUGURI Nigeria MAIDUGURI Nigeria Suspected Islamist militants killed dozens of people on Sunday in an attack on three Nigerian villages, including one targeting worshippers at a church, a few kilometres (three miles) from Chibok, the scene of an abduction of more than 200 school girls. Violence in Nigeria's northeast has been relentless in the past year and has gained in intensity since April, when more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched by Boko Haram rebels from Chibok. Efforts to free them, which have attracted Western support, have so far not succeeded. In a separate assault on Friday evening insurgents killed seven soldiers in the village of Goniri, in Yobe state, a security source and witnesses said. The attackers on Sunday made simultaneous strikes on three villages in the Chibok community, in Borno state.

Boko Haram, which is fighting for an Islamic state in largely Muslim northern Nigeria, has killed thousands since launching an uprising on 2009, and many hundreds in the past three months. It is by far the biggest security threat to Africa's largest economy and top oil producer, and has overshadowed government efforts to project an image of Nigeria to foreign investors as a prospective economic giant. Samuel Chibok, a survivor of the attack on Kautikiri village, about five km from where the girls were snatched, said that around 20 men in a Toyota pick-up truck and motorcycles rolled into town. They sprayed it with bullets, focusing much of their fire power on panicked worshippers in a local church. "Initially I thought they were military but when I came out, they were firing at people. I saw people fleeing and they burned our houses," he said, adding that some people had died in the attack, including two of his relatives. "Smoke was billowing from our town as I left." A local pro-government vigilante, who declined to be named, said residents had now recovered 15 bodies from the village.

He added that many of the deaths occurred when worshippers were locked in a church, which was then sprayed with bullets. HEAVY DEATH TOLL Boko Haram often attacks institutions it sees as against its strict version of Sunni Islam, including churches, bars and non-religious schools that teach Western ideas like science. Another attack on Kwada, eight km (five miles) from Chibok village, left dozens of people dead, a security source operating in the area said, although the precise toll was not yet clear. A senior advisor to Borno state governor Kassim Shettima, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said there had also been a third attack on Nguragida, his home village which he visited on Sunday. Nine bodies had been recovered from that attack, he said. An explosion on Friday night in a brothel in the northeastern Nigerian city of Bauchi killed 11 people and wounded 28, police said on Saturday. This attack was also believed to be the work of Boko Haram.

A military operation in the northeast has so far failed to quell the rebellion and has triggered reprisal attacks that are increasingly targeting civilians, after they formed vigilante groups to try to help the government flush out the militants. But their tactics - often striking then fleeing over the border into Cameroon - have repeatedly proved devastating. They are well armed and funded by a lucrative kidnapping operation. In Friday night's attack on a military outpost, suspected Boko Haram fighters arrived in four armoured personel carriers and 11 Hilux trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, said a security source and a witness who gave his name only as Hamisu. "They were all dressed in full military but they did not direct their onslaught on the civilian population," Hamisu said by telephone. The militants are extending their reach beyond their remote northeastern heartlands. A bomb in an upmarket shopping district of the capital Abuja killed 21 people on Wednesday, the third attack on the capital in three months. President Goodluck Jonathan said Nigeria had entered one of the darkest phases of its history during a visit to the scene of the Abuja blast on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Joe Hemba in Damaturu; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Ralph Boulton, Stephen Powell, Greg Mahlic) ADVERTISEMENT Nigerian Schoolgirl Describes Kidnapping by Terrorists - NBC News May 6 2014, 7:30 am ET Nigerian Schoolgirl Describes Kidnapping by Terrorists Woman holding signs take part in a protest demanding the release of abducted secondary school girls from the remote village of Chibok, in Lagos. The Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility on Monday for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls during a raid in the village of Chibok in northeast Nigeria last month, the French news agency AFP reported, citing a video it had obtained. AKINTUNDE AKINLEYE / Reuters Share Did the #bringbackourgirls campaign make a difference in Nigeria? | World news | The Guardian Guardian Africa network Did the #bringbackourgirls campaign make a difference in Nigeria? Last year the world united in outrage over the 276 girls abducted in Chibok by Boko Haram. But was it activism or clicktivism?

Nigerian women including the mothers of the kidnapped Chibok girls demand action in Abuja last year. Have global hashtags helped them? Photograph: Philip Ojisua/AFP/Getty Images Tuesday 14 April 2015 10.32 EDT Last modified on Friday 17 April 2015 05.15 EDT Close This article is 1 year old Today marks one year since 276 school girls were abducted by Boko Haram in the northern Nigerian village of Chibok. It was an event – like the assault on the town of Baga in January – which outraged Nigerians and, somewhat belatedly, tugged at the world’s heart strings. As Nigerians marched to the capital Abuja to demand action the global social media community rallied around a call to #bringbackourgirls. In less than three weeks the hashtag had been used over 1 million times with everyone from supermodel Cara Delevingne to the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama adding their selfies to the mounting social media noise.

A year on the hashtag begun to trend globally again as the world marks a year since the girls disappeared: but whilst some of the girls have escaped the majority remain missing, leaving their families with nothing to do but to wait in hope . Fidelis Mbah (@fidelisMbah) April 14, 2015 Clicktivism or activism? Although their plight has gained awareness are western supporters guilty of falling in to the trap of clicktivism? The lure of supporting a campaign perceived to be in vogue – before swiftly moving on to the next. Whilst not disputing the power of collective sentiment, Jumoke Balogu from Compare Afrique argued that the western outcry over the campaign was misplaced. Calling on western powers to “do something” only served to strengthen America’s “military legitimacy”, said Balogu. She felt that the campaigning and solidarity would be better placed to support journalists and campaigners seeking to hold the Nigerian government to account. Chibok kidnapping: stoicism and security demands as girls remembered Read more The fervour was also mocked by American conservatives who dismissed it as “simply an exercise in self esteem ”, that would be of no concern to the Nigerian Islamist group.

But Ben Hewitt from A World At School argues that most of the high profile campaigning has been in direct support of the grassroots #bringbackourgirls campaign in Nigeria: “Some people raise their voice once in solidarity and others keep a much longer vigil” but both are valid campaigning tactics, he says. Hewitt says the campaign group, set up by Sarah Brown, were one of the first of the international groups to write about the abduction – on 17 April – who then leveraged their international networks to put pressure on the UN and fundraised their school programme in Nigeria. In the meantime the kidnappings are ongoing. Amnesty International estimate that over 2000 girls have been abducted by Boko Haram since the beginning of 2014, with many forced into sexual slavery. The rights group lament Nigerian security forces for not doing enough to protect civilians and point to an absence of investigations or prosecutions of Boko Haram members for crimes under international law. When asked if #bringbackourgirls campaign has been a success Hewitt said: “the girls are still missing ...

that is the ultimate measure of success and we are not there yet.” Nigerian-led campaigning Oby Ezekwesili was one of the three Nigerian campaigners to set up the grassroots campaign calling it #bringbackourgirls. Speaking to the Guardian at the end of 2014 she described her incredulity at the lack of action that drove her to start campaigning. Ezekwesili’s group organised the initial march in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, which sparked the online movement and regular vigils in the capital. As long as one person is still holding out a candle for the kidnapped, we haven’t failed Oby Ezekwesili When asked if her pressure group made progress she said: “As long as one person is still holding out a candle for the kidnapped, we haven’t failed. That one voice can grow into millions eventually”. She also described the harassment designed to intimidate their group. In July security operatives tried to prevent her from catching a flight to appear on a BBC programme. Hostility which was ongoing on the eve on the anniversary : Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) Just @ day to ONE year of monumental anguish suffered by OUR #ChibokGirls &their parents.

And some still pollute my TL with inhumane words. This morning her tweets read like a heartfelt open letter to the missing girls. She told the BBC she hoped the girls were still alive and went on to share a host of pictures of yesterday’s protests, as thousands marched in silence to keep the issue on top the government’s agenda . Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) Dear daughters, Hope sustained us. Hope is all WE have left. Hope that does not make ashamed. Hope that you must know all too well by now. April 14, 2015 Political appropriation Politicians and hashtags don’t always make an easy mix, especially when a hashtag is appropriated for political aims. In September 2014 supporters of the then incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan attempted to galvanise support for his re-election using #bringbackgoodluck2015 , with some supporters reported to have turned up at the park where the daily #bringbackourgirls vigil was taking place to display their banners. JJ.

Omojuwa (@omojuwa) April 5, 2015 The plan backfired and Jonathan was criticised for being disrespectful and insensitive, and his office later demanded that posters carrying the call be torn down. Nigerian commentator Max Siollun thinks that the reason Goodluck Jonathan lost the recent presidential election to Muhammadu Buhari was in part due to his failure to take the mass kidnapping seriously. It took two weeks for him to address the issue publicly, while his wife Patience was accused of melodrama smacking of insincerity when she met mothers of the kidnapped girls. Nigerians have since expressed hope that new president Buhari – who will come into power later this year – will be able work with campaigners to find the girls, and find a solution to fight Boko Haram. In the Land of Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls - The Atlantic The Atlantic See our Newsletters > In the Land of Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls A journey to the village of Chibok, where insurgents hide in the bush as families mourn the loss of their daughters. Most Popular Print Text Size On Monday morning, May 12, I sat in the backseat of a Toyota Corolla, headed to Chibok.

With a satin abaya draping my body in a sheath of black, and my hair curled underneath a black chiffon hijab, my careful effort to blend into northeastern Nigeria’s conservative, predominately Muslim society appeared to be working. The soldiers who peered into the backseat gave me casual glances, waving us past checkpoint after checkpoint. “This is the heartland of Boko Haram,” said the governor of Borno State when I visited him in the state capital of Maiduguri along the way. A month earlier, militants from the radical Islamist group had seized a secondary school in Chibok and kidnapped almost 300 female students. The town had quickly become an emblem of a region in crisis, where insurgents attack churches and mosques and kill children in their sleep while shouting “Allahu akbar.” When I set out for Chibok—a three-day journey from the Nigerian capital of Abuja—I'd encountered children selling peanuts and sachets of water along the road. Those who had nothing to sell simply held out their palms. “Allah ya kiyaye, Allah ya kiyaye,” they’d said, muttering prayers in the Hausa language for Allah to grant us a safe journey.

I'd been warned about the dangers of the trip: Boko Haram hide in the bushes along the road to Chibok, waiting for lonely cars to pass by. They cross the street to get from one end of the surrounding fields to the other, and they shoot at cars as they go, before disappearing into the Sambisa Forest. Boys pump water on the campus of the girls' secondary school in Chibok. (Chika Oduah) “From this point of the journey, everything from here is Sambisa,” explained one of my companions, Daniel Wadai, a lawyer and Chibok native I’d met in Abuja at one of the daily #BringBackOurGirls rallies. From the passenger’s seat, he gestured to the left, just above our driver’s head. I turned to look and saw small bushes stuck in the sand and a few scattered trees. I had expected to see a dense grove of trees. “This is not a forest,” I said. “No. It’s not the forest that the media is painting it to be,” Wadai replied.

related story The Bloodstained Hunters of Boko Haram “On the evening of April 14, local vigilantes warned army commanders about armed men who had cruised into their village on motorbikes, pledging to attack a girls' boarding school. But the military didn't deploy troops to Chibok.” Read the full story by Matt Ford Dogonyaro, acacia, and baobab trees flashed by in a blur, as the Sahelian landscape grew drier and flatter. Yellow flowers broke the monotony of the green and brown landscape. And then, suddenly, we were surrounded by cows making their way across the road. One of them stopped by my window. I looked into its big, moist eyes, admiring its shiny, reddish brown coat. Our driver continued on undaunted, carefully weaving the car through the horde. A battered blue station wagon drove up alongside us, and its driver said something to us in Hausa before speeding away. “He told us we should never drive close to the cows,” Wadai explained. “He said that the spirit of Boko Haram can enter the cows. So we should always wait for the cow to cross the road.” He laughed. I was puzzled. Wadai continued.

“It’s a common belief here. They believe that Boko Haram sends its spirit inside the cows.” For people here grappling with a palpable fear of fighters with no clear agenda and no set targets on their path of destruction, Boko Haram had taken on supernatural qualities. The group had completely wiped out villages like Bulabulin. There, weeds grew freely in farm plots. Cooking pots lay overturned in the dirt. On our way to Chibok, I counted three telecom masts, but I couldn’t pick up a network signal on my phone. Boko Haram had destroyed the area’s infrastructure, too. “The spirit of Boko Haram can enter the cows. So we should always wait for the cow to cross the road.” We soon reached the town of Damboa, where a battalion headquarters stood next to the abandoned construction site of a housing development. At the checkpoint there, sunburned guys who appeared to be in their twenties—all civilians who had volunteered as vigilantes—clenched guns, machetes, and bows and arrows. “Where are you going?” they asked. “Where are you coming from?” “Chibok, Maiduguri,” the driver answered.

“They are tired of Boko Haram coming to make trouble and now they are fighting back,” Wadai told me. “Enough is enough.” Damboa had once been a hotspot for Boko Haram recruitment, explained a stringer for an international news agency who was traveling with us, and whom I’ll call “Dayo.” Now, many of the boys there, having renounced their membership in the militant group, were trying to rid the town of Boko Haram. Members of an anti-Boko Haram civilian militia on the road from Maiduguri to Chibok. Some of these vigilantes are former members of the insurgency. (Chika Oduah) Monday is market day in Damboa, and the town was bustling. Vegetable sellers congregated along the roadside. A butcher sliced meat on a wooden plank as women waited for his cuts. Lean dogs scurried about. Men stood languidly in line in the heat, as civilian fighters inspected the men’s fingers for trigger marks—signs of heavy gun usage that could out them as Boko Haram members. We left Damboa, turning onto a pothole-ridden dirt path known as Chibok road.

Here, I came closer to Sambisa than I had ever been before. Now there were no checkpoints in sight. We had clearly embarked on the most dangerous leg of the journey. And then our car came to a halt. The driver, a silent type, didn’t respond when I asked him what had happened. Instead, he pumped the accelerator. Nothing. Wadai asked, “Is it the fuel pump?” The driver got out, lifted the hood, and peered into the belly of the car. Dayo looked nervously at the bushes on the left. “This is still Sambisa right?” “Yes, all of this is Sambisa,” Wadai answered. Both of them left the car and stood next to the driver. I stayed inside, watching the bushes vigilantly. Five long minutes passed, and we were still stuck. Finally, the engine sputtered back to life and we drove on, deeper into a landscape devoid of villages and people. We rode silently, looking out the windows for any sign of danger. Civilian fighters inspected the men’s fingers for trigger marks that could out them as Boko Haram members. “Are those people running?” Dayo asked, alarmed.

I saw the outlines of two people making their way along the edges of Sambisa. “No,” Wadai said, pointing out that they were biking. At 15 minutes before noon, the car stalled once more. The fuel pump was busted, Dayo and Wadai concluded. We let the engine cool down before starting it again, which worked—until it didn’t. When the car stopped for a third time, we headed back to Damboa and found a mechanic. Leaving the car with the driver, we hired someone who agreed to take us to Chibok. The going rate was 3,000 Nigerian naira ($18). We arrived in Chibok covered head to toe in sand from one of the village’s fierce sandstorms. Amid the dust, a sign for the government-run secondary school marked the site of Boko Haram mass kidnapping. A guard let us through the school’s gate without much fuss, and we made our way across the rubble through a series of burned-out classrooms.

Nearby, three people were sitting under a mango tree surrounded by charred debris: the school’s principal, Asabe Kwambura, and two administrators, who were waiting for a government delegation to arrive and investigate the incident. Bare bed frames fill the ruins of the school from which Boko Haram abducted over 200 schoolgirls. (Chika Oduah) Kwambura greeted me, lifting her purple veil and wiping tears from her eyes. She projected confidence, though I sensed it was withering. “They are our girls,” she told me. I asked if the Nigerian military had been protecting the school on the night of the attack. Kwambura said no—the school had its own watchmen, and one had been guarding the main gate while the other was posted at the girls’ residence. I was stunned. A government school in a state under emergency rule had been left with no government-authorized security. Young girls had been sleeping in their rooms without any solid assurance of safety.

related story Tracking Nigeria’s Worsening Security in Real Time “For three years, a group of researchers has been cataloging incidents like the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Chibok.” Read the full story by Uri Friedman Two matrons led us to the girls’ residence, where I saw bare bed frames and shards of glass on the floor. Standing in the bedrooms, I imagined the girls’ screams as they were snatched away. I pictured them disappearing with their kidnappers into the night. In Chibok, I found a close-knit community in mourning—families gathering together at dawn and then heading to a dozen or so churches and a handful of mosques scattered around the village to pray for the girls to return. At night, Esther Yakubu—a mother of five, including 15-year-old Dorcas Yakubu, who was among the kidnapped students—crouches on her knees and clutches her Bible. “God is not dead. He is alive,” she told me, and then prayed: “God bring her back.” Esther misses her daughter’s presence. “I like her by my side always,” she said. “Anytime I think about her, I bust out crying.

That’s all I do everyday.” Sitting with her husband in the family’s cozy living room, as daylight beamed through two narrow windows, Esther told me that she and Dorcas spoke either in person or on the phone every day, and that Dorcas had been planning to take a course on how to sew garments. Ten-year-old Marvelous was sitting on the floor as we spoke. I asked him about Dorcas, and he mumbled, “I am still crying and praying.” Outside, on the patio, I met Dorcas’s younger sister, Happy, who was carrying pails of fresh rainwater. Happy was angry. “I want to leave [Nigeria] because they are not taking care of us,” she told me. Residents here cannot feel the impact of the federal government’s estimated $5 billion defense budget. “My junior sister has respect,” said Hawa Zanna, the 19-year-old sister of one of the kidnapped girls. (Chika Oduah) On my way to the home of Lawan Zanna—whose daughter, 18-year-old Aisha, had been kidnapped by Boko Haram—I met a gang of giggling girls jumping in shapes they had drawn in the sand.

It looked like a game of hopscotch. Wadai told me it was called elgalagala. The girls jumped and twirled and laughed with glee. I stopped to take pictures and they posed like fashion models. related story Education Protects Women From Abuse “When the group arrived at the school, they were shouting, “We are Boko Haram. We will burn your school. You shall not do school again. You shall do Islamic school.” Read the full story by Olga Khazan At Zanna’s home, I sat cross-legged on a red straw mat on the patio as he told me how he and the other parents had marched through Sambisa in a fruitless search for their daughters. Hawa, 19, showed me the bedroom she shared with Aisha. A large bed took up more than half of the room; plastic suitcases and laundry baskets were piled along the walls. In a low voice, Hawa described Aisha. “My junior sister has respect,” she said. “She is a very quiet girl.” Back on the patio, Zanna, was on his knees, praying to Allah. I said my goodbyes, and left the family to mourn.

My last stop that day was at Lydia Pogu’s family compound. Lydia had managed to run away from her abductors after the attack in April. Sitting with Dayo and me on a wooden bench, she described how Boko Haram fighters had stormed the school asking for food and dragging the girls onto trucks. With a friend, Lydia had jumped out of her truck and landed on her stomach, before fleeing the scene. She told me she never wants to go to school again. She wants to farm the land instead. Some of the girls escaped by jumping out of the trucks. Others hid in the bushes or clung to tree branches. By this point, our driver had returned from the mechanic’s shop in Damboa, and he drove us to Wadai’s family home in Chibok, where we’d be spending the night. I sunk onto a couch, weighed down by sadness. I thought about the principal and her gutted school; about Lydia and her harrowing escape; about Happy’s bitterness, Marvelous’s hope, and Esther’s continuous tears.

The next morning, we left Chibok, but not before stopping at the home of the oldest man in the village, Bitrus Dawa Kulaha Abugar Woshanta Umar Ibn Elkanemi, or Bitrus Dawa for short. He tells everyone he was born in 1910. We spoke about the first time he saw white people—Christian missionaries—in Chibok, in 1923; about the 1967-1970 Nigerian civil war, when he was working as a teacher; about how corrupt, unethical Nigerian leaders had degraded the country. Raindrops interrupted our conversation. “That dirt road is impossible in the rain,” Wadai told me, urging me to wrap things up with Dawa. I ducked into the car, where Dayo was already waiting. The driver snaked through the mud until the car stalled—yet again. Dayo yelled in frustration and the driver silently opened his door. With his pants folded up to his knees, he began to walk around aimlessly. We stayed there for almost 10 minutes, until Wadai took the wheel and nudged the car out of the mud.

We came across a group of cars that were also stuck, and I recognized Lawan Zanna and Esther Yakubu’s husband, who burst into smiles when they saw me. They were transporting Lydia and four other girls who had escaped from Boko Haram to Maiduguri at the request of the government, in the hopes that the girls could identify abducted classmates who had appeared in a video released by the militant group. Three of the escaped schoolgirls head to the state capital of Maiduguri to help with the investigation. (Chika Oduah) Some of the girls in the car had, like Lydia, jumped out of the trucks, while others had hidden in the bushes or clung to tree branches as the vehicles drove off. “We are not happy until our friends come back,” Lydia said. We helped the other cars out of the mud and proceeded on the road together in a convoy. Eventually, we reached the first major checkpoint. A soldier asked us where we were going, and where we were coming from. “Maiduguri, Chibok.” “Chibok! You people passed the night in Chibok?” He shook his head, incredulous.

“Someone like you is not supposed to pass there.” “Why not?” said Wadai. “It’s my village.”

Question: Where is the village of Chibok?
Answer: Nigeria