A survivor of the April 2014 Chibok girls’ kidnapping by jihadist group Boko Haram on Friday got an opportunity to narrate her ordeal at the United Nations Security Council.
Joy Bishara, one of the girls that were abducted from their school on the night of 14 April 2014, managed to escape as they were being ferried to an unknown location in huge trucks.
While giving her ordeal at the Council, she described the horrific incident, saying she “prayed and asked God to please save me and to please let me see my family again.”
“They said that they are here. They are the Boko Haram people we have been hearing about and they are the ones who kill, who burn churches, so they just told us what they do and told us if we do not cooperate, the same thing will happen to us,” she said.
Bishara was invited to narrate her ordeal at the Council’s meeting that focused on Attacks on Schools.
She described how she managed to jump from a moving truck and ran for hours in the dark night, for the fear of what would become of her if she got to the destination that the militants were taking them to.
Boko Haram managed to kidnap 276 girls on that fateful night, though tens of them managed to escape in the next few months.
The incident shocked the world, prompting calls from the international community, humanitarian organizations and other agencies to call upon all authorities concerned to do everything in their powers to rescue the girls.
Boko Haram has waged a decade-long war in West Africa, seeking to topple governments and enforce a strict sharia-based governance system. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions others.
Listen to Joy Bishara’s full speech here;
Courtesy: United Nations
