The Chibok Schoolgirls Kidnapping

On the night of 14–15 April 2014 the militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls, aged 16 to 18, from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State (Wikipedia). The school had been closed for four weeks because of insecurity, but the girls had returned to sit their final physics examinations. Fifty-seven escaped almost at once by jumping from the trucks carrying them, and others were later rescued or released.

The kidnapping took place during the insurgency of Boko Haram in north-eastern Nigeria. According to Wikipedia, the school at Chibok had been closed for four weeks because of the deteriorating security situation, and the girls had returned only to sit their examinations. In the confusion that followed, the military at first wrongly claimed that most of the girls had escaped or been released. On 5 May 2014 Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, claimed responsibility in a video, and said he would not free the girls until imprisoned members of the group were released.

Ten years later, in April 2024, 82 of the girls were still missing. Wikipedia notes that the Chibok girls were a small fraction of those abducted by Boko Haram: Amnesty International estimated in 2015 that at least 2,000 women and girls had been abducted by the group since 2014.

The kidnapping drew worldwide attention to the insurgency and to the government's response. Wikipedia's history of Nigeria describes it as highlighting the weakness of the Nigerian state, and the criticism of President Goodluck Jonathan's handling of Boko Haram became an issue in the 2015 election. After his election, President Muhammadu Buhari said he was willing to negotiate with Boko Haram for the girls' release; 21 of the girls were later freed after negotiations brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss government (Wikipedia).