Kidnapped Girl’s Rescue Doubted By Campaigners
A kidnapped girl’s rescue is being doubted by campaigners on Friday who are not fully convinced that a second schoolgirl has been rescued. As reported by Africa News, some aren’t entirely convinced that the rescued Chibok girl is really who they say she is. However, the Nigerian army maintains she was one of the 219 abducted by Boko Haram.
The AFP wrote that Yakubu Nkeki, the head of the Chibok Abducted Girls Parents group, said the military contacted him before an announcement was made on Wednesday about the discovery of the first girl, Amina Ali.
“We were able to identify her and then establish her parents,” Nkeki was quoted as saying.
“We are glad to state that among those rescued is a girl believed to be one of the Chibok Government Secondary School girls that were abducted,” Army spokesman Sani Usman said in an emailed statement, before adding that she was receiving medical treatment.
However, there was no call before Nigeria’s army announced late Thursday that a second schoolgirl had been rescued and Nkeki claims that the military did not contact him to identify the girl as they had done when they rescued Amina Ali Nkeki earlier this week.
'Second Chibok girl rescued' in Nigeria https://t.co/6t2i8y9bob
— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) May 19, 2016
Adding to doubt, Nkeki said there are only two girls who had Luka as a surname on the list of missing girls but the name Serah was not listed as being either of their first names. They were identified as Kauna Yana Luka and Kuka Dzaka Naomi. However, speaking with reporters, a top military official gave the following statement to the AFP.
“The soldiers who carried out the operation, the militia that helped, and those who know this girl confirmed that she was among the kidnapped girls,” the official said.
Meanwhile, Amina Ali Nkeki, who was rescued earlier this week, met with the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday after enduring two years in custody of the Islamic extremist group. She was 17 when a group of armed men, mounted on pickup trucks, stormed her village and kidnapped her along with dozens of other girls. It was on April 14, 2014 when the terrorist group Boko Haram carried out a mass kidnapping of young women. Today, just over two years after her abduction, Nkeki has become the first Chibok girls rescued alive from the clutches of Boko Haram.
Amina Ali Nkeki, the rescued Chibok girl, has arrived at the Presidential Villa, with her family, to meet PMB pic.twitter.com/1CdYScAghd
— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) May 19, 2016
The return home for Amina will not be easy but her rescue brings hope to the more than 200 families who are still waiting for their daughters. Reuters via Yahoo News wrote that President Muhammadu Buhari vowed at a news conference on Thursday that she would continue her education and he also condemned the brutality of forced marriage.
“Amina’s rescue gives us new hope and offers a unique opportunity to vital information,” Buhari said during a meeting with the teenager, her mother and officials after a presidential jet flew her to Abuja.
“We believe that in the coming weeks we shall recover the rest of the girls,” Governor Kashim Shettima told reporters. “The military is already moving into the forest.
According to Al Jazeera, the governor’s comments came shortly after Amina met Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who had made crushing Boko Haram a pillar of his 2015 presidential election campaign.
[Image via Twitter]
