One year on, where are the Chibok schoolgirls?
On April 14, 2014, nearly 300 girls were abducted at midnight from their school, Federal Government Girls College, Chibok, in Borno State, Nigeria. The state has been the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency. Both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency by Nigeria’s security forces have turned Borno and neighboring states like Yobe and Adamawa into war zones, producing the most egregious acts of human rights abuses from belligerents on both sides. Boko Haram’s viciousness is evenly matched by the state’s brutal reaction that often has targeted northern Muslim youths indiscriminately, helping to both prolong and escalate the violence. The story of the Chibok girls is sad commentary on the state of the insurgency and the counter insurgency. The girls are still in captivity, their families (and the girls) are still traumatized, and the government continues to do business as usual. Worse still, the government fully expects Nigerians, especially the suffering parents of the abducted girls to develop amnesia and completely forget that the abduction ever happened. Read the full report.
