Women carrying placards attend a street protest campaigning for the rescue of abducted Chibok girls, in the Ikeja district of Lagos, Nigeria, April 14, 2016. | Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
One of the more than 100 schoolgirls who remain missing since their abduction from the Nigerian town of Chibok by the Boko Haram terror group in 2014 has escaped her captors, and her family is rejoicing while awaiting her return after seven long years.
Halima Ali Maiyanga was 15 when she was kidnapped. She’s returning home as a 22-year-old woman.
“Halima was in tears. She told us she was with the military and needed some clothes because she had nothing,” her brother, Muhammad Maiyanga, who spoke to Halima on the phone, told The Wall Street Journal. “We never thought we’d see her again.”
Released students gather at the Government House with other students from the Government Science Secondary school, in Kankara, in northwestern Katsina State, Nigeria, upon their release on December 18, 2020. More than 300 Nigerian schoolboys were released on Thursday after being abducted in an attack claimed by Boko Haram, officials said, although it was unclear if any more remained with their captors. | KOLA SULAIMON/AFP via Getty Images
A persecution watchdog group is urging Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue the boys who are still being held captive by Boko Haram after security forces rescued 344 of the kidnapped students in northern Nigeria late Thursday.