According to family members and local officials, at least one of the more than 100 young women still missing after their abduction by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the Nigerian city of Chibok nearly seven years ago managed to escape her captors this week.
Halima Ali Maiyanga told her family in a phone call on Thursday that she was one of hundreds of inmates who were able to flee amid a Nigerian military offensive against Boko Haram fighters in the Sambisa forest in the northeast of the country.
The Chibok Association, founded after 276 girls were kidnapped from their high school in the city of Chibok in 2014, said several others had also gained their freedom under the pressure of the military. More than 100 of them were released in 2016 and 2017 after ransom payments and the release of some Boko Haram fighters by the government.
Halima was in tears. She told us she was with the army and needed some clothes because she had nothing, ”said her brother Muhammad Maiyanga. “We never thought we would see her again.”
Ms. Maiyanga, now 22 years old, was 15 when she was kidnapped on the night before her final exam. Her older sister Maryam Ali Maiyanga managed to escape in 2017, along with a son born after her forced marriage to a jihadist fighter.
“People come to us to rejoice,” the sister said. “I can’t wait to reunite with my sister.”
A man in Lagos drove past portraits of some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram.
Photo:
pius utomi ekpei / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Neither the government of Nigeria nor the military responded to the calls for comment. A Nigerian security official said the military had determined that some refugees were from Chibok. Another said they had only confirmed that more than 100 women had been released.
Defense officials said the new offensive showed that the military was regaining the initiative after a year of struggle to contain the jihadists, who have grown wider and bolder.
According to the US Council on Foreign Relations, the period since July 2018 has been more deadly for Nigerian security forces personnel than at any time in the decade-long conflict.
High schools are still targeted by Boko Haram. In December, 344 students were kidnapped from a boys’ boarding school in Katsina state, but released after ransom was paid, Nigerian security officials said.
Boko Haram’s kidnapping of the Chibok girls sparked the global # BringBackOurGirls campaign that briefly turned them into the world’s most famous hostages. The hashtag sparked an international rescue effort led by the US, which deployed drones and satellites over the Sambisa forest to hunt the prisoners.
After news of Ms. Maiyanga’s escape, other families in Chibok waited expectantly for news of daughters some had laid down never to see again. But the community saw its hopes earlier after allegations that the girls had been released turned out to be false.
Rebecca Samuel, whose daughter Sarah was among the hostages, said she had a vivid dream Thursday night that her daughter would return alive and well.
“I told my husband about my dream this morning,” she said. “I haven’t stopped praying for my daughter’s return since she was kidnapped in 2014.”
After being kidnapped by Boko Haram, 21 Chibok schoolgirls were reunited with their parents in October 2016 at an emotional rally in Abuja, Nigeria. Photo: AP (originally published October 16, 2016)
—Kabiru Anwar contributed to this article.
Write to Joe Parkinson at [email protected]
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