Chibok-schoolgirls kidnapped for 600 days (December 5)

600 days after the radical Islamists of Boko Haram kidnapped 219 schoolgirls in northeastern Nigeria, there is still no sign of life of the abduction victims. “The kidnapped schoolgirls from Chibok must not be forgotten! Their fate exemplarily shows how the people in northeastern Nigeria are suffering from the civil war and the anti-terrorism measures,” stated the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Göttingen on Friday. The Africa-expert of the human rights organization, Ulrich Delius, demanded: “Nigeria’s government should no longer remain silent about the fate of the Chibok-girls!”

The parents and siblings of the abducted feel left alone by the authorities, as they still have no information about their daughters and sisters. “It is an indictment of the 200,000 soldiers and 300,000 paramilitaries in Nigeria – and for the entire security apparatus – that they were unable to gather at least some credible information about the hostages’ whereabouts within 600 days,” criticized Delius. Yakubu Nkeki, chairman of the movement for the kidnapped Chibok girls, told the STP: “No representative of the regional or federal government has ever paid us a visit in Chibok to get an impression of what we are going through.” At least 176 of the hostages in Chibok belong to the Protestant “Church of the Brethren” (Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa a Nigeria, EYN).

In summer 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari had declared the case of the Chibok girls a priority, demanding the army to grind down the terrorist movement by the end of December 2015. “At the moment, however, there seems to be no chance for a quick end to the violence. Boko Haram was forced to withdraw from some regions, but the extremists are still spreading fear and terror with their terrorist attacks and assaults in northeastern Nigeria and in Cameroon, Niger and Chad,” reported Delius. In these four states, more than 360 people died in terrorist attacks and violent clashes in November 2015. Most recently, 22 Shiite Muslims died in an attack against a procession near the city of Kano on November 27, 2015.

Delius recalled that is especially the children and young people who are suffering from the bloody civil war in Nigeria. According to information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), about 68 percent of all IDPs in the northeast of the country are children and adolescents. More than 800,000 children and young people in the region cannot go to school because of the violence.

Header Photo: Michael Fleshman via Flickr