The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) recently released the names of 165 Christian girls and 15 Muslim girls it says were kidnapped from Chibok. Many are affiliated with the Church of the Brethren. Meanwhile, the overall number of abducted girls has risen past 275, according to The New York Times, because reports of girls taken from other schools were slower to surface.
International outcry over last month’s kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls during final exams has grown large enough to make terrorist groupBoko Haram a trending topic on Twitter. But even as efforts like “#BringBackOurGirls” gain steam, few of the students have been found.
The kidnappings occurred April 14, when the girls were taken from the predominantly Christian town of Chibok in the predominantly Muslim state of Borno. An estimated 50 of the teenage girls have since escaped. Now, media reports indicate that Boko Haram, which has killed an estimated 1,500 people so far this year, has taken the girls into the neighboring countries of Chad and Cameroon where they risk forced marriages and human trafficking.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) recently released the names of 165 Christian girls and 15 Muslim girls it says were kidnapped from Chibok. Many are affiliated with the Church of the Brethren. Meanwhile, the overall number of abducted girls has risen past 275, according to The New York Times, because reports of girls taken from other schools were slower to surface.
On Monday, the kidnapping took a more sinister turn when a leader of Boko Haram—Abubakar Shekau— released a video declaring:
“I abducted your girls…There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women.”
Barnabas Aid reports militants in Cameroon are paying the equivalent of 12 USD for one of the girls. Pogo Bitrus, leader of the Chibok Elders Forum, called the buying and selling of the girls for marriage a “medieval kind of slavery.”
World Watch Monitor has released an in-depth report on gender-based sectarian violence in northern Nigeria, which examines “Boko Haram’s numerous justifications for violence specifically against Christian women and girls”
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