- Boko Haram attacked Chibok school, abducted atleast 276 girls
According to Lawrence Durrel, history is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.
History has a special significance in human existence. It doesn’t just preserve recollection of occurrences; occasionally, it also sparks contemplation on earlier occasions. We need to be aware of our history as we move forward.
WITHIN NIGERIA highlights one notable event that shaped April 15 in Nigerian history in an effort to raise awareness for the sake of education.
Boko Haram attacked Chibok school, abducted atleast 276 girls
On this day, April 14 in 2014, members of the Islamic jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria, a majority Christian village.
A few hours prior to the raid, residents in Chibok had received phone calls from neighbouring villages warning them of the incoming attack, who had witnessed convoys containing armed insurgents driving in the direction of the town.
The kidnappers broke into the school, pretending to be soldiers of the Nigerian Armed Forces and dressed in matching military uniforms.
The militants also engaged approximately 15 soldiers based in Chibok, who were unable to stop the attack as the militants had superior numbers and firepower, and no reinforcements were sent by the Nigerian Military during the course of the attack.
A soldier and a police officer were killed during the course of the raid. The attack lasted for about 5 hours, during which houses in Chibok were also burned down.
According to accounts given by some of the girls, including a diary written by two of the girls (Naomi Adamu and Sarah Samuel) whilst in captivity, the militants had intended to steal a piece of machinery and were initially unsure what to do with the girls. They told the girls to get out and come with them.
Some girls were loaded into vehicles and the rest had to walk several miles until other trucks came to take them away, possibly into the Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest, a former nature reserve covering 60,000 km2 where Boko Haram were known to have fortified camps.
An unidentified senior military source believed that the girls may have been split up and placed in different Boko Haram camps, around Lake Chad, the Gorsi mountains and the Sambisa forest. 57 girls were able to escape by jumping from the trucks in which they were being transported.
