Two girls released in Nigeria eight years after Boko Haram mass kidnapping

The troops nigerianas They found two former students kidnapped by the jihadists of Boko Haram eight years ago in the mass kidnapping at school Chibok (northeast), the military said Tuesday.

The two women had babies on their laps as they were presented by the military, after freeing them from jihadists who kidnapped 276 students from an all-girls school in Chibok in April 2014, sparking international outrage.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Musa, a military commander in the region, told reporters that the girls were found on June 12 and 14 at two separate locations.

“We are very fortunate to have been able to recover two girls from Chibok,” he said.

Of the 276 abducted schoolgirls, 57 managed to escape by jumping from vans shortly after the abduction and another 80 were freed in a trade for imprisoned Boko Haram commanders after negotiations with the government.

The last two rescued are Hauwa Joseph, found along with other civilians on June 12 after the dismantling of a Boko Haram camp, and Mary Dauda, ​​found in a village near the border with Cameroon.

“I was nine years old when I was kidnapped from our school in Chibok, I was married not too long ago and I had this child,” Joseph told reporters at military headquarters.

Her husband and father-in-law died in a military operation and she was left alone with the 14-month-old baby.

“We were abandoned, nobody took care of us. They didn’t feed us,” he explained.

Thousands of Boko Haram fighters and their families have surrendered in the past year, fleeing government bombing and fighting with rival jihadist group Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP).

The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people and left 2.2 million displaced since 2009.

Dauda, ​​who was 18 years old when she was kidnapped, was linked several times with different Boko Haram guerrillas. “They didn’t feed you and beat you if you didn’t pray,” she explained.

She decided to run away and told her husband that she was going to visit another Chibok girl in a nearby village. With the help of an old man who lived in that village, Ella Dauda walked all night until she surrendered to the government troops in the morning.

“All the other Chibok girls are married with children. I have left more than 20 behind,” she said.

After the Chibok kidnapping, attacks on schools by jihadist groups were widespread in northeastern Nigeria.