On the night of Monday April 14 to Tuesday April 15, 2014, 276 high school girls were kidnapped from their school in northeastern Nigeria by Boko Haram fighters. The Chibok tragedy caused a worldwide stir but a decade later, many of them are still missing and kidnappings from schools have increased.
It was a nightmarish night that never ended. On April 14, 2014, jihadist fighters from the Boko Haram group stormed a secondary school in Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria. Following an attack lasting several hours, during which part of the boarding school was set on fire, 276 young girls present there were pushed aboard trucks which soon took them away into the night.
This kidnapping claimed by Boko Haram causes fear in Nigeria and well beyond. The “Bring Back our Girls” campaign resonated worldwide and the plight of the Chibok girls even attracted the attention of Michelle Obama, then first lady of the United States.
But in the midst of a jihadist insurgency in the Borno region, the security threat was well known to the authorities.
“Everyone was in shock, obviously, it was the first time we had seen a kidnapping of this magnitude, remembers Isa Sanusi, now director of Amnesty International Nigeria, but in an investigation that we carried out shortly after this tragedy, it appeared that the security forces had been alerted that an attack could take placehe continues, except no one did anything. There was a serious security breach. »
Just after the attack, 57 high school girls managed to escape by jumping from the vehicles in which they had been crowded. Between 2016 and 2017, around a hundred young girls will be released in exchange for the release of Boko Haram prisoners and money transfers. Others managed to escape and reunite with their families over the years, but ten years later, 82 Chibok high school girls are still missing, according to the most recent count by Amnesty International.
Army bombings
“ I treat them all as if they were my own daughters and I will always fight for them, even if they are not of my blood “, swears Yakubu Nkeki, several of whose relatives were kidnapped by Boko Haram at the time.
The fifty-year-old chairs the association of parents of kidnapped high school girls who continue to wait, day after day, for their niece, cousin or sister to reappear, except that the situation on the ground has evolved significantly in recent years. The Boko Haram group split into rival factions and its historic leader, Abubakar Shekau, killed himself in May 2021, after an offensive by fighters from the Islamic State group in West Africa (Iswap) against his stronghold of the Sambisa forest.
“There are many clues that make us think that the Chibok high school girls were dispersed in several Sambisa camps, but others were undoubtedly taken to the Mandara Mountains, on the Cameroonian border, and others still towards Lake Chad », explains Nigerian analyst Kabir Adamu, who himself took on the role of negotiator in kidnapping cases.
He even estimates that some prisoners have probably lost their lives in recent years: “We must not forget that the Nigerian army has carried out numerous raids against jihadist camps, with intensive bombing campaigns,” he emphasizes. These indiscriminate strikes have cost the lives of many hostages held in Boko Haram camps in recent years.
Stigmatization of communities
Once released, the Chibok high school girls were able to recount the terror and suffering they felt during their detention.
“They are extremely courageous young girls. They were 16 or 17 years old when they were kidnapped and many of them were forced into marriage. They were physically and sexually abused, and often came close to death from army bombs. describes German-Nigerian artist Ade Bantu who met many Chibok survivors.
“Their reintegration into society is very difficult because they face a lot of stigma, he explains. People don’t stop questioning them, asking why they got married, why they converted to Islam… and it’s also difficult for those who have had children, “Boko Haram” children. “. Families are ashamed of this », he describes. Exhausted by waiting or worn out by sadness, around forty relatives also died, without having seen the woman whose release they hoped for.
“ Even today, many parents are consumed by guiltsighs Ade Bantu. They continue to wonder if they really should have sent their children to school. They thought about giving them an education but ended up saying that they should have just kept them with them, on the farm. This would have spared them the worst. »
Failures of the authorities
A persistent feeling of abandonment makes returning to life even more difficult. While some of the young girls released were able to be cared for in educational establishments, others never returned to their studies. Most have also not benefited from appropriate psychological support, despite traumatic years of detention.
In the town of Yola where RFI met them, Amina and Jummai, two survivors from Chibok, talk about the broken promises of the Nigerian government.
“The girls who are still in captivity must be released,” implores Amina who is playing with her baby. “If the authorities want to do something for the girls of Chibok, they must all be sent to school! And their children too! Some have two or three and they struggle to feed them », she says.
The shock caused by the tragedy in Chibok did not help improve security in schools in Nigeria either. At least 1,500 children and adolescents have been kidnapped from their schools since 2014, with an increase in mass kidnappings in the northwest of the country. In Katsina State alone, nearly a hundred schools closed their doors in 2023 for fear of local “bandits”.
However, several major plans have been adopted in recent years, with the support and funding of international partners. However, these measures were never actually implemented, according to Kabir Yusuf. “When three hundred schoolchildren were kidnapped in Kuriga, Katsina State, in early March, there was not even a fence surrounding their school », regrets the security analysis expert who points to poor coordination between the federal government and the federated states, which are supposed to apply these directives, but which lack personnel and resources.
In the north-west of Nigeria, competition between armed groups who finance themselves through kidnappings has only worsened the security crisis, while in the north-east, jihadist groups, still active, continue to episodically capture women and girls who venture beyond the army trenches.
Read alsoNigeria: 8 years after the kidnapping of Chibok high school girls, around a hundred still missing