A Decade After Chibok, Nigeria Faces a New Wave of School Abductions
(ANALYSIS) It’s been over a decade since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Borno, in April 2014. The abduction received international attention, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirl being shared globally, including by Michelle Obama.
While the topic has long been gone from the public domain, some 90 girls are still missing. Furthermore, the Chibok girls’ abduction was not the first and not the last such crime perpetrated in Nigeria. A plethora of schools have been targeted since, with girls being abducted, raped, killed or forced into “marriages.”
Last week has seen hundreds of students abducted in a fresh wave of such attacks. On Nov. 17, a Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, in Northwest Nigeria, was attacked, leaving the school’s Vice-Principal dead and some 25 students abducted. Reportedly, one of the abducted girls managed to escape. It did not stop there.
On Nov. 21, some 303 students and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state, Nigeria. The students are said to be both male and female, aged 10 to 18. Niger state has reportedly closed all schools until further notice and authorities have deployed security forces to try to find those missing.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, they bear a striking resemblance to the tactics used by Boko Haram. Boko Haram, a Salafi-jihadi Muslim terrorist organization, first emerged in 2003. Boko Haram’s crimes are widespread, geographically, and vary greatly in magnitude. The group is based in north-east Nigeria but is also active in neighboring countries. Their crimes are mostly directed towards those who oppose Boko Haram’s ideologies or support “Western values.”
The group subjects women and girls to physical and mental abuse, rape and sexual violence, forced labor and much more. In addition to the Chibok girls, Boko Haram abducted thousands more over the years, with the crimes receiving very little attention, let alone responses.
Whether Boko Haram or other terror groups, the new wave of attacks shows the lack of preparedness of Nigeria to such acts. Indeed, a UNICEF report, released in 2024 to mark 10 years since the Chibok kidnappings, found that only 37% of schools across 10 states have early warning systems to detect threats, including violence and armed attacks. Among others, the report revealed that Kaduna and Sokoto states lag significantly, with fulfillment rates at just 25% and 26%, respectively.
The findings are particularly concerning, as in the last 10 years, conflict-related violence has led to more than 1,680 children abducted while at school and elsewhere. Some 180 children were killed due to attacks on schools.
Furthermore, an estimated 60 school staff members were kidnapped, and 14 were killed. This violence is affecting children’s learning, with children afraid to return to school, and schools being closed due to attacks.
You can read the rest of this post at Forbes.com.
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response. She’s authored the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of genocide and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities around the world. She is on X @EwelinaUO.