Nigeria finds Chibok girl kidnapped by Boko Haram, with baby
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Soldiers interrogating captured Boko Haram suspects have found one of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by the insurgents nearly three years ago, along with her baby, Nigeria’s military said Thursday.
Nearly 300 girls writing science exams were kidnapped by Boko Haram from a government boarding school in the remote northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014, a mass abduction that shocked the world and brought Boko Haram international attention. Most of the girls remain in captivity. Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language, and the group’s fighters have attacked many schools and killed hundreds of students.
In May, one Chibok girl escaped. In October, the government negotiated the release of 21 more. Another girl was freed in November in an army raid on an extremist camp in the Sambisa Forest.
Army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman identified the latest girl to be freed as Rakiya Abubakar and said she has a 6-month-old baby. He said her identity — she’s shown as Rakiya Gali on the official list of missing girls — was discovered when soldiers were interrogating some of more than 1,000 suspects detained in recent weeks of army raids on the Sambisa Forest.