GLOBAL PRAYER NETWORK: Chibok girls: Second schoolgirl rescued

Minggu, 22 Mei 2016

Chibok girls: Second schoolgirl rescued - Nigerian army

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service, who was born in Nigeria

NIGERIA (ANS – May 19, 2016) -- A second schoolgirl from the more than 200 seized in the Nigerian town of Chibok by the Boko Haram terror group, has been rescued, the Nigerian army says.

Army spokesman Col. Usman Sani Lukashenka said more details about the operation would be provided later.

“This comes two days after the rescue of the first girl, Amina Ali Nkeki, and her four-month-old baby,” said the BBC. “In all, 217 girls remain missing after their abduction by the Boko Haram Islamist group from a secondary school in north-eastern Nigeria in 2014.”

Earlier on Thursday (May 19, 2016), Amina, 19, was flown to the capital Abuja to meet President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr. Buhari said he was delighted she was back and could resume her education.

“But my feelings are tinged with deep sadness at the horrors the young girl has had to go through at such an early stage in her life,” he added.

The BBC went on to say that Amina and her baby were found by an army-backed vigilante group in the huge Sambisa Forest, close to the border with Cameroon.

She was with a suspected member of the Boko Haram Islamist group, who “claimed to be her husband.”

Aboku Gaji, who heads the vigilante group that found Ms. Nkeki, described to the BBC Hausa service the emotional reunion with her mother.

“When we arrived at the house, the door was closed, I asked the mother to come and identify someone, the moment she saw her, she shouted her name Amina, Amina!

“She gave her the biggest hug ever, as if they were going to roll on the ground, we had to stabilize them.

“The girl started comforting the mother, saying: ‘Please mum, take it easy, relax, I never thought I would ever see you again, wipe your tears. God has made it possible for us to see each other again.’

“That's what this girl, Amina kept telling her mother.”

During the April 2014 attack, Boko Haram gunmen arrived in Chibok at night and raided the school dormitories, loading 276 girls onto trucks.

More than 50 managed to escape within hours, mostly by jumping off the trucks and running into roadside bushes.

A video broadcast by CNN in April this year appeared to show some of the kidnapped schoolgirls alive.

Fifteen girls in black robes were pictured. They said they were being treated well but wanted to be with their families. The video was allegedly shot on Christmas Day 2015 and some of the girls were identified by their parents.

The Chibok schoolgirls, many of whom are Christian, had previously not been seen since May 2014, when Boko Haram released a video of about 130 of them gathered together reciting the Koran.

The abduction led to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which was supported by US First Lady Michelle Obama and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, made an incredible recovery, and now lives in Birmingham, England.

Another campaign group working for the girls’ release, the Pathfinders Justice Initiative, said there was a “renewed sense of energy and hope and excitement” among families of the girls after Ms. Nkeki’s escape.

Executive director Evon Idahosa told the BBC World Service’s Newsday program that there was now “no excuse” for the Nigerian government not to step up efforts to free the remaining captives.

“They [the families] are excited but they have also been disappointed so much in the past, particularly during the Jonathan administration [from 2010-2015].”

Photo captions: 1) Amina Ali Nkeki (facing away from camera) showed her child to President Buhari (Reuters). 2) The girl and her daughter were found along with a man who the military has said “claimed to be her husband” (Nigerian Military). 3) The Bring Back Our Girls campaigners and relatives of the girls have marched in Abuja to demand more be done to rescue them (AFP). 4) Dan Wooding doing a live broadcast from Seoul, South Korea.

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About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for nearly 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren, who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and the author or co-author of some 45 books. Dan has a radio show and two TV shows, all based in Southern California. Before moving to America, he had previously been a senior reporter with two of two of Great Britain’s top-circulation newspapers, as well as an interviewer for BBC Radio in London, England.