Activists are disputing a Nigerian military report that a second “Chibok girl” kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in 2014 has been rescued.
The military said Friday that a girl it named as Serah Luka, rescued Thursday in the Damboa area of Borno State, was one of the 219 missing girls from the Chibok Government Secondary School.
Campaigners for the Chibok girls question the claim. Yakubu Nkeki, chairman of the Abducted Chibok Girls Parents group, tells VOA two girls named Luka were taken from the school and Serah Luka is not one of them.
“She is not a Chibok girl,” he said. “I have the documents of the 215 parents.”
The military released a photograph of the girl, veiled in a long blue hijab common to the region and similar to hijabs worn by other abducted girls seen in Boko Haram videos. The military says the girl is receiving medical attention in the town of Biu.
On Tuesday, the first rescued Chibok girl, 19-year-old Amina Ali, was found with her 4-month-old baby by civilian vigilantes in the Sambisa Forest area of Borno State
Ali and her mother met President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday at his residence in Abuja, where he said the government is “doing all it can to rescue the remaining Chibok girls.”
“Amina’s rescue gives us new hope, and offers a unique opportunity for vital information,” he said in a statement issued after the meeting.
Boko Haram abducted the schoolgirls from their dormitory in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok the night of April 14, 2014.
The Islamist extremist group has kidnapped hundreds of other individuals and killed an estimated 20,000 people during its seven-year insurgency to create a strict Islamic state.
Nigeria’s military has been mounting an offensive since late April to flush out Boko Haram fighters from the Sambisa Forest, the group’s primary remaining stronghold. (News Express)