Thirteen of the remaining
Chibok schoolgirls in captivity have reportedly died in the insurgents’ custody
due to hunger and snake bites.
This was revealed in a
report on the kidnap incident by Wall Street Journal which quoted officials as
saying 13 of the girls have lost their lives during their nearly three years in
Boko Haram custody.
THEWILL recalls that Boko
Haram fighters kidnapped 276 girls from Government Girls Secondary School,
Chibok, in Borno state.
Of that number, 163 are now
free as 57 fled in the early days after their abduction, three more escaped
later, and 103 were released in by the insurgents.
“Of the remaining 113, at
least 13 have died, officials say. Some were felled by malaria, hunger or a
snake bite,” the WSJ report said.
“The majority died in
airstrikes. Among those forcibly married to fighters, at least two died in
childbirth.”
The report also stated that
contrary to what was believed, the insurgents had only come to steal the
bricklaying machine in the school.
It was only after they had
stolen the machine that one of them raised question on what should be done with
the girls.
“On the night of the
attack, when the girls emerged in the courtyard, they could see the men were
not soldiers,” the report continued.
“They wore unkempt beards,
flip-flops and tattered uniforms. Several were raiding the school cafeteria,
stealing sacks of rice, beans and pasta. Others poured gasoline on the school
to torch it.
:Boko Haram had not come to
abduct the students. It had come to steal the school’s brickmaking machine. The
insurgents had been on a kidnapping spree, and their camps faced a housing
shortage.
“A commander fired his
rifle in the air and demanded to know where the machine was kept. Once they
found it, the fighters hoisted it onto a truck.
“As they prepared to leave,
one militant, motioning to the students, asked a fateful question. What shall
we do with them?
“The unit’s commander
turned to the girls. ‘Shekau will know what to do with them,’ he said.
“The fighters ordered the
students to climb into their trucks. The teenagers linked hands and arms as
they stumbled through the dark.”
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