A Nigerian schoolgirl who managed to escape from Boko Haram militants after being kidnapped from her Chibok school in 2014 has called on the international community to remember those still in captivity.
The abduction of 276 schoolgirls in the north-eastern town of Chibok in April, 2014, by Islamist militants caused a global outcry – including the #BringBackOutGirls campaign on social media which was supported by former US First Lady Michelle Obama, but almost three years later, 195 girls are still missing.
Using the pseudonym “Sa’a” to protect her identity, the girl reportedly told a conference in Dubai that the girls “are human beings, not something that we can forget about”.
“How would you feel if your daughter or wife was missing? Not one day or two, but three years. It’s very painful,” the BBC reported her as telling the Global Education and Skills Forum.
Some 24 of the young women have been returned or freed including 21 released last October. But Sa’a told conference delegates the “world has to do something” to rescue her friends.
“I remember those girls, but their dreams are now no more,” she said.
Sa’a also described the night in April, 2014, when the Boko Haram militants arrived at her school, “shooting guns and yelling”. She says the girls initially though the militants, dressed in army fatigues, were there to protect them but that changed when they were told to obey or be killed.
The students were forced into trucks and cars at gunpoint and Sa’a said she and a friend were able to escape when they jumped out of the back of a truck as it went through a forest.
Another young woman, whose father and brothers had been killed by Boko Haram, also addressed the conference under the name ‘Rachel’.
Both girls called for greater efforts to get the Chibok girls back, and to make schools safe from attack.
