Nigeria Rescues Another Student From 2014 Chibok Kidnapping

DAKAR, Senegal — The Nigerian military said Thursday that it had rescued one of the students kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in 2014 from a school in the village of Chibok. Nearly 300 girls were taken as they prepared for exams, an episode that aroused global outrage.

The student, Salomi Pogu, was found in northern Nigeria along with at least one other person who had been kidnapped, according to the military. The other abductee was a 14-year-old girl who was with a child. Officials did not release details of their rescue, but local news media reports said it came during a military operation.

Allen Manasa, a spokesman for the village of Chibok, said he believed that one of the rescued women was Pogu. Verification was difficult because authorities were still trying to contact Pogu’s parents, Manasa said.

Since the kidnapping, Pogu’s parents had been forced to flee their home under threat of attack by Boko Haram and were living in a camp for displaced persons in a remote part of the country.

“There’s no phone reception in that village,” Manasa said.

Pogu and the others who were rescued were being held by the military for medical care Thursday.

In April 2014, fighters from the Islamic militant group stormed the girls’ school and kidnapped as many as 276 girls. Militants released images of the captured girls that quickly circulated on the internet, resulting in a social media campaign championed by celebrities with a hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Protesters have staged regular demonstrations in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to agitate for the girls’ release.

In the past two years, the government has negotiated for the release of dozens of the girls on two occasions, engaging in a prisoner swap for detained Boko Haram commanders. A few others have been found wandering in the forest or during military operations that freed other captives. A number of the rescued girls have told officials that some fellow students died in childbirth or during military strikes.

The rescued girls have been enrolled in a Nigerian university, with the tuition paid for by the government.

About 100 girls are still being held, a fact that is bound to bedevil the party of President Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria moves into the campaign season for the 2019 presidential election. Buhari had promised to secure the release of all the girls during his previous campaign.

An untold number of people are still being held by Boko Haram, a group that routinely kills boys and men for refusing to join, conscripts others into its fighting force and turns women and girls into sex slaves and suicide bombers. About 2 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and many now live in squalid conditions with poor sanitation, medical care and not enough to eat.

The military under Burhari has made gains capturing and killing Boko Haram militants since he took office in 2015. He has said that Boko Haram has been defeated, even as the war with the group enters its ninth year.

But fighters are still sending suicide bombers throughout the northeastern part of the country, most recently attacking a mosque. Over the summer, militants kidnapped geologists on an oil exploration mission. Last month, fighters attacked a food convoy heading for a displaced persons camp, killing four people, burning one truck full of food and stealing another, according to World Food Program officials. Not long ago, the military’s commander overseeing operations in the war was replaced.

In his New Year’s speech, Buhari said Nigeria had “beaten Boko Haram.”

“Isolated attacks still occur, but even the best-policed countries cannot prevent determined criminals from committing terrible acts of terror as we have seen during the past years in Europe, Asia, Middle East, elsewhere in Africa and in America,” he said, according to a text of his speech.