I remember two years ago, when my friend who lives on the Lekki Axis mentioned that her neighbor’s security guard lamented that his sister was part of the Chibok girls that had been kidnaped. That was the closest I got to knowing someone who knew someone who was directly impacted by the Chibok girls.
Fast forward to this morning, when the same friend told me the security guard announced with joy that his sister had been found! She is Amina Ali Nkeki who was kidnapped by the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram more than two years ago. Now a 19 year old girl, she has been reunited with her family. This is great news!
How She Was rescued
On Tuesday night, she apparently wandered out of a forest, asking for help, accompanied by a baby and a man who claimed to be her husband, according to witnesses.
The man is being investigated by Nigeria’s joint intelligence center, according to a military statement.
Amina Ali is the first of the more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram to be freed after the two years in captivity, Nigerian military officials say. Military officials and locals gave different accounts of how she was liberated. Nigeria’s army said she was rescued by army troops, but a witness told CNN the girl wandered out of the Sambisa forest in the Northeast of Nigeria along with her child and a man.
The Sambisa Forest, believed to be the terrorist group’s stronghold, has long been the suspected location of the girls. As many as 276 of them were kidnapped at gunpoint from their boarding school in Chibok in Borno, northeast Nigeria, on April 14, 2014.
At least 57 girls were able to escape soon after their abduction, but more than 200 of them remain missing.
The witness, Aboku Gaji, told CNN he was participating in a nightly patrol on the edge of the Sambisa Forest with the Civilian Joint Task Force, a vigilante group set up to help fight Boko Haram, when the girl and some companions wandered out around 7 p.m.
He said her name was Amina Ali Nkeki, and he recognized her as one of the missing schoolgirls, although she looked different and was in poor physical condition, as were the baby and man with her.
“Their bodies didn’t look good,” Gaji said. “They had had no bath and were in a dirty condition.”
The young woman was part of a group asking for help, including a man who identified himself as her husband and the father of her baby, Gaji said.
Gaji and his commander took the girl to her house, in the settlement of Mbalala, where she was reunited with her mother, Binta Ali, Gaji said.”When we arrived at the house… I asked the mother to come and identify someone. The moment she saw her, she shouted her name: ‘Amina, Amina!’ She gave her the biggest hug ever, as if they were going to roll on the ground, we had to stabilise them.
The mother called the attention of other relations to come out and see what is happening. The girl started comforting the mother, saying: ‘Please Mum, take it easy, relax. I never thought I would ever see you again, wipe your tears. God has made it possible for us to see each other again.’
According to BBC, she is reported as saying “all the Chibok girls are still there in the Sambisa except six of them that have already died.”
We still pray for the safe return of all the Chibok girls.
For more on the story visit
CNN.com,Â
bbc.com
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