{"id":33291,"date":"2017-03-18T12:39:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T12:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/don-t-forget-us-chibok-schoolgirl-tells\/"},"modified":"2017-03-18T12:39:51","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T12:39:51","slug":"don-t-forget-us-chibok-schoolgirl-tells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/don-t-forget-us-chibok-schoolgirl-tells\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t forget us, Chibok schoolgirl tells conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

{A Chibok schoolgirl who escaped from Boko Haram militants in Nigeria has called on the international community not to forget those still in captivity.}<\/p>\n

Next month will mark the third anniversary of the abduction of more than 270 girls.
\nThe militants are still holding about 195 of the young women.<\/p>\n

The pupil, speaking under a pseudonym, told an education conference in Dubai: “These girls are human beings, not something that we can forget about.”<\/p>\n

The abduction of the schoolgirls in north-eastern Nigeria in April 2014 by the Islamist militant group caused a global outcry – and prompted campaigns about girls’ right to education.<\/p>\n

But almost three years later most of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls are still being held by kidnappers.<\/p>\n

One of the girls who had been seized, using the pseudonym “Sa’a” to protect her identity, said the “world has to do something” to rescue her school friends.<\/p>\n

“How would you feel if your daughter or wife was missing? Not one day or two, but three years. It’s very painful,” she told the Global Education and Skills Forum.<\/p>\n

{{Split-second decision}}<\/p>\n

She said that some of the parents of the abducted girls had died and the others were traumatised by their long wait.<\/p>\n

Last autumn, 21 of the young women were returned. But Sa’a told the conference of her disappointment that the majority still remained in captivity.<\/p>\n

“I remember those girls, but their dreams are now no more,” she said, recalling their plans for their careers and future lives.<\/p>\n

Sa’a described the night in April 2014 when Boko Haram militants arrived at her school, burned books and classrooms and forced the pupils into trucks and cars at gunpoint.<\/p>\n

Sa’a and a friend had jumped out the back of the truck as it went into a forest.
\nThe girls had hidden overnight and with the help of a shepherd had made their way back to safety.<\/p>\n

“I thought I was going to die that night,” said Sa’a.<\/p>\n

But she said that if she hadn’t taken that split-second decision to jump, she would still have been held in captivity and missing from her family.<\/p>\n

Sa’a spoke alongside another young woman, using the name “Rachel”, whose father and brothers had been killed by Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Sa’a and Rachel called for greater efforts to get the Chibok girls back and to make schools safe from attack.<\/p>\n

They said that their experiences had made them more determined than ever to make the most of an education that had been denied to the abducted classmates.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{A Chibok schoolgirl who escaped from Boko Haram militants in Nigeria has called on the international community not to forget those still in captivity.} Next month will mark the third anniversary of the abduction of more than 270 girls. The militants are still holding about 195 of the young women. The pupil, speaking under a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33291"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33291"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}