Chibok Girls, 3 years after

Three years ago, on the night of 14th April, 2014, Boko Haram insurgents,an extremist and terrorist organization based in the northeastern Nigeria kidnapped 276 female students from the government secondary school in the town of Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria. 57 of the school girls managed to escape over the next few months and some have described their capture in appearances at international human rights conferences. A child born to one of the girls and believed by medical personnel to be about 20 months old was also released, according to the Nigerian presidents office.

Since then, hopes were raised on various occasions that the remaining 219 girls might be released. Sources reports suggested that Boko Haram was hoping to use the girls as negotiating pawns in exchange for some of their commanders in jail..
In May 2016, one of the missing girls, Amina Ali was found and she claimed that the remaining girls were still there but six had died. Another girl was discovered later in the week but parents of the missing girls expressed doubts as her name was not among those originally missing.

Soon after, 21 girls were released in october 2016, while another was rescued the next month and another was found in January 2017. However, with limited action and success after initial protests in 2014, little has been accomplished through social media regaerding results. Aa at January 13, 2017,195 of the 276 girls were still in captivity, close to three years after the kidnappings. Even a top power house country like the US was unable to secure the girls release, despite the movement raising more than $400million (France-Presse,2016).

However, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign will continue in hopes of one day finding the rest of the girls, and hopefully put a stop to the sadistic group that was responsible for their kidnappings.