Boko Haram girls escaped the clutches of the militant group on Monday, reports officials. According to a report by AFP, Nigerian officials confirmed 63 Boko Haram girls and women escaped after more than 60 were abducted by the Islamic terrorist group. However, more than 200 girls who were kidnapped in April remain missing.
According to News Week, the Boko Haram girls escaped and this news have been confirmed by news agency AFP through an unnamed high-level security source in the restive Borno state.
On Monday, Chairman Pogu Bitrus of the Chibok local government verified that about 60 women and Boko Haram girls escaped on Thursday and Friday. Bitrus apparently sent a representative who met with some of the escapees and their families at a Lassa hospital. Lassa is the town in the neighboring Damboa local government area.
According to Abbas Gava, a local vigilante, he had "received an alert from my colleagues ... that about 63 of the abducted women and girls had made it back home."
The women and Boko Haram girls escaped have been hostages and part of the 68 women and girls who have been kidnapped on the north-east Borno state earlier last month. According to the Associated Press, these women were captured from the Kummabza village after Boko Haram seized the village four days, killed 30 men and burned the village to the ground.
At least five of the 68 women still remain in captivity.
It has been speculated that the Boko Haram girls escaped on Friday during which Boko Haram militants and the Nigerian soldiers clashed in Borno, near the army base on the outskirts of Damboa town.
According to Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade, the clash where the Boko Haram girls escaped killed 53 insurgents and six Nigerian soldiers, including the commanding officer. The attack is reportedly suspected to be a response to a Nigerian military air strike where dozens of Islamic militants were killed in the Yejiwa and Alagarno areas.
The AP reports that an officer who requested anonymity said the raid was an apparent reprisal by Boko Haram since the Nigerian military performed the air strikes 24 hours earlier and killed many of their members.
After updates that Boko Haram girls escaped, this news appears to be the most positive of all news involving the extremist group. Fox News reports that there have been ongoing small-scale kidnappings by Boko Haram for months. However, on Apr. 15, small-scale turned big when they abducted more than 200 schoolgirls from a school in the Chibok town of Borno state.
The large scale kidnapping drew international condemnation and spawned the global social media campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, especially after the group threatened to sell the girls if their demands are not met. President Goodluck Jonathan reportedly promised to free the captured girls but has still so far not fulfilled this promise.
Reports indicate some 219 girls from all Boko Haram's abductions remain missing.
Before Boko Haram girls escaped this week, the group has been making demands for the release of their detained fighters in exchange for the girls. However, Nigeria's Pres. Jonathan refused to consider the terms of the swap hence attracting criticism locally and internationally for failure rescuing the girls.
The Nigerian government has been gravely concerned over the Islamist group's recent tactics of singling out women, young girls and widows in their abductions. As a result, the north of the country has been declared under a state of emergency.
Before Boko Haram girls escaped this week and even before news of the kidnappings, the militant group has also been known to have caused a series of bombings in Nigerian cities. Just last month, 21 people have been killed as Boko Haram when a busy shopping centre was bombed in the capital, Abuja.
The Kibaku Area Development Association, a local residents' association reported 19 villages having been attacked since the Apr. 15 abductions. The village attacks were known to have killed more than 229 people and seriously injured more than 100 people.
The association has reportedly already asked help from the United Nations. They said in a statement, 'The inability or unwillingness of the federal government to provide adequate security to Chibok (Kibaku) nation following the abduction of the girls leaves us with no option than to call on the United Nations to use its apparatus to come to our aid and protect us from the imminent annihilation as a people.'
According to the AP, news of the Boko Haram girls escaped during the clash between the Nigerian military and the extremist group is considered one of the successes achieved by the government. However, this was reported as a rare victory for the military whose bases have been overrun by the militants after soldiers fled them during previous attacks.
An estimated 2,000 people, or possibly more, have reportedly died so far this year during the 5-year-old Islamic uprising. The situation only appears to be getting worse as there have only been an accumulated 3,600 deaths in the four previous years.
Boko Haram girls escaped and hopefully, more will be able to flee or be rescued as there seems to be no hope of the group releasing the captive women and girls. The group Boko Haram was founded in opposition to Western influence in Nigeria. They were declared a terrorist group in 2013 after increasingly violent attacks. The group's current objective is to put the Nigerian government out of power and establish an Islamic state in its place.
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