After last week’s suspected Boko Haram attack, the Nigerian government has just confirmed that 110 school girls have gone missing.
This marks the largest kidnapping of young women since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok nearly four years ago.
Reports indicate that armed militants came to the Government Science and Technical College in the town of Dapchi in Yobe state on February 19 and abducted the girls from there, according to Reuters.
The exact number of missing girls was not immediately clear, and confusion reigned due to conflicting reports with some saying that only 50 young women were missing. And to make matters worse, the government insinuated that some of the girls had been rescued, prompting parents and loved ones to raise false hopes only to then be disappointed and devastated until Sunday when Nigeria’s Information Ministry confirmed that 110 girls were missing
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari called this latest kidnapping a “natural disaster,” and the Nigerian government on Monday promised that troops and planes had been dispatched in order to search for the school girls, according to the BBC.
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Afraid to go back to school
The students are still trying to come to terms with the aftermath of this attack.
Aishatu Abdullahi, who attends the school, said that she barely escaped and hid in an abandoned house overnight.
“They were shooting guns and everyone was confused. Then we started running all confused,” she told reporters. “We saw some people pushing some of the students to enter their vehicles.”
“Many of us are traumatized,” she added.
While the students were granted a break from school after the attack, many are still reeling and scared.
“But, in all honesty, I am not willing to come back here because we are scared of what could happen to us in the future,” Abdullahi admitted.
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As many as 100 of the girls taken from the Chibok school in 2014 remain with the extremist group. A number have escaped, while others were released through negotiations with the government. According to aid groups, thousands more have been kidnapped, but it is the infamous case of the Chibok schoolgirls that has received the most international attention. That incident sparked a worldwide #BringBackOurGirls campaign.