Freed from Boko Haram, Chibok girls are kept silent

LAGOS, Nigeria: She was found wandering in a forest, the first of the nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram to escape on her own and reach freedom. That was in May. Since then, Amina Ali Nkeki has been sequestered by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, embraced just once by her family months ago.
Some say Nigeria’s government is keeping the young woman silent because it does not want her telling the world about military blunders in the fight against the extremist group, and about her desire to be reunited with the father of her child — a detained former Boko Haram commander.
“I worry, sometimes, that I don’t know if she is alive or dead,” her mother, Binta Ali Nkeki, sobbed during an interview from her remote northeastern village of Mbalala. She said she has not seen her daughter since July.
Sunday marks 1,000 days since the mass kidnapping, and most of the Chibok schoolgirls remain in captivity. The few who have been freed, like Amina, have found themselves not completely free.
The mass abduction horrified the world and brought Boko Haram international attention. The failure of Nigeria’s former government to quickly act to free the schoolgirls sparked a global Bring Back Our Girls movement, with even US first lady Michelle Obama posting a photo with the logo on social media.
Amina was the first to escape on her own. Months later, in October, the government negotiated the release of 21 Chibok girls.
Another girl was freed in November in an army raid on an extremist camp in the Sambisa Forest. On Thursday, yet another girl was found during military interrogations of Boko Haram suspects, along with her baby.
In December, when Amina’s mother heard that “freed” Chibok girls would be allowed to come home for Christmas, she borrowed money for transport to reach the town where the girls were kidnapped from a government boarding school in April 2014.
When Binta reached Chibok, she was welcomed by the 21 girls, who tried to reassure her that her daughter was “fine, in good health,” even though she had not been allowed to accompany them.
Human rights groups and lawyers have criticized Nigeria’s treatment of the freed girls, who are held in Abuja, the capital, nearly 900 kilometers (560 miles) from Chibok. The government says the girls are getting medical attention, trauma counseling and rehabilitation.
Officials in the government and the presidency did not respond to requests for comment, following a familiar pattern.
People who have spoken to the freed girls say they have stories that the government does not want told, including that three Chibok girls were killed last year in Nigerian Air Force bombings of Boko Haram camps.
Amina has said she wants to be home with her mother, and she has insisted that the father of her child is a victim, like herself, who was kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced to fight for the insurgents.
Her mother says that when her daughter was rescued — hunters found her, the father of her child and the 4-month-old baby in a forest — she said she didn’t want to go back to school.
But her mother and brother, Noah, persuaded her to take up Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to give her the best education possible.
“They told her that soon she will be starting school,” Noah Ali Nkeki said. He got the news in a rare phone call from his sister on Thursday, the first time he had heard from her in three months.
He cannot call her. Officials call him using a blocked number and then put his sister on the line. The girl’s mother doesn’t get to speak to her because she doesn’t own a cell phone and reception in her village is poor.
“I don’t know what the government is trying to do. They have had her now for seven months,” Noah said.