’13 Chibok Parents Have Died From Stress-related Illnesses’

Reports from Chibok show that 306 days
after the Chibok girls were abducted
from their secondary school by armed
Boko Haram insurgents, 13 of the
parents of those girls have since died
due to stress-related illnesses.
An online report by the Associated Press
(AP), while saying that hundreds of other
girls and boys have been abducted in
different villages across the three
northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa
and Yobe since the Chibok incident,
added that some parents have also died
though violence.
Furthermore, AP said the Boko Haram
extremist group now sees mass
kidnappings as a shining symbol of
success, and has abducted hundreds of
other girls, boys and women.
Consequently, the militants brag to their
new captives about the surrender of the
Chibok girls, their conversion to Islam
and their marriage to fighters.
“They told me the Chibok girls have a
new life where they learn to fight,” says
Abigail John, 15, who was held by Boko
Haram for more than four weeks before
escaping. “They said we should be like
them and accept Islam.”
Abigail is one of three girls interviewed
by some reporters from the Associated
Press.
The report said that while Abigail was
telling her story, she was fidgeting and
looking down at her hands, clasped in her
lap. She recounts how one fighter,
nicknamed ’Tall Arab”, was set on
marrying her. She pleaded that she was
too young, but was told, “Do you think
you are better than those Chibok girls
that we kidnapped?”
The man told her the Chibok girls were
“enjoying their matrimonial homes,” she
remembers. He also said the Chibok girls
had turned against their parents, and
were “ready to slit their parents’ throats”
if they ever saw them again.
He added that the the Chibok girls were
all Muslims now, and some were training
as fighters to fight women, which Boko
Haram men are not supposed to do.
The girls had no idea whether the
militants were telling the truth or making
up stories to taunt their victims, but
Abigail says the fighters enjoyed relating
how they had whipped and slapped the
Chibok girls until they submitted.
She added that when the Nigerian air
force dropped a bomb on the house
where she and others were confined, she
tried to escape. She stated that she
wrestled with the fighters, but they broke
her arm and hauled her off to another
house.
She and others were eventually able to
escape and made their way to safety,
aided by some villagers who saw them.
However, all the girls interviewed by AP
said they were not raped, despite the
fears of some villagers. Instead, the
fighters said they wanted the girls to
remain virgins until they were married
off.
While dozens of the Chibok girls escaped
on their own after their kidnapping, 219
are still missing. Nigeria’s military initially
feared any action could lead to the girls
being killed. But villagers reported last
week that air force jets have begun
bombing the Sambisa Forest-the area
where some of the girls are still being
held captive, according to some of the
escaped girls.
President Goodluck Jonathan, had on
Wednesday, during a live media chat told
the nation that the Chibok girls would be
recovered alive in a few weeks.