Chibok girls: Nigerian army claims second rescue


The second Chibok girl, who the army said was rescued on ThursdayAFP
The second Chibok schoolgirl was rescued on Thursday, the army said

A second schoolgirl from the more than 200 seized in the Nigerian town of Chibok has been found, the army says.

But a spokesman for the Chibok girls' parents has cast doubt on the claims, saying that the girl's name is not on the families' list of those missing.

An army spokesman said she was among a group of 97 women and children rescued by troops in the north-east.

Islamist militant group Boko Haram has abducted thousands of other girls in recent years, rights groups estimate.

This comes two days after the rescue of the first Chibok girl.

The army has previously made mistakes in its statements about the rescue of the Chibok girls - in its initial statement after the first girl was found, it used the wrong name.

In all, 218 girls remain missing after their abduction by the Boko Haram Islamist group from Chibok secondary school in north-eastern Nigeria in 2014.

The first rescued girl told a Chibok community leader that six of the kidnapped girls had died, but the rest were still in the Sambisa forest where she was found.

The BBC's Tomi Oladipo: The rescued girl's mother said she was "thankful to God"

In a statement, Col Usman said: "We are glad to state that among those rescued is a girl believed to be one of the Chibok Government (Girls) Secondary School girls that were abducted on 14 April 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorists."

He said she was the daughter of a pastor.

But the head of the group representing the Chibok girls' parents said their own records did not match up with the details given by the army.

Yakubu Nkeki told the BBC there were four priests among the parents but none with the surname given by the army.

The first rescued Chibok girl with her child, meeting President BuhariReuters
The first rescued Chibok girl showed her child to President Buhari

Furthermore, the army said she comes from Madagali in Adamawa state, but Mr Nkeki said all the abducted girls were from Borno state.

If the Nigerian army's information about the class the girl was in is correct, she would have been aged between 12 or 13 at the time of her abduction.

Most of the girls abducted were several years older and about to sit their school-leaving examinations.

The confusion over the girl's identity may be down to the difficulty in getting confirmation from her parents, BBC Hausa editor Mansur Liman says.

Many of the parents of the Chibok girls are spread out, living in remote areas with little access to the internet, he adds.

Col Usman said the 97 women and girls were found on Thursday in the Demboa area of Borno.


More on the Chibok abductions:

map

Chibok rescue revives Twitter campaign

Inside Mbalala, the town that lost its girls

Chibok abductions: What we know

On patrol in the Sambisa forest

Torment of a freed Boko Haram 'bride'


Earlier on Thursday, the first Chibok girl found was flown to the capital Abuja to meet President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Buhari said he was delighted she was back and could resume her education.

"But my feelings are tinged with deep sadness at the horrors the young girl has had to go through at such an early stage in her life," he added.

She was found by an army-backed vigilante group in the huge Sambisa Forest, close to the border with Cameroon, along with her four-month-old baby.

She was with a suspected member of the Boko Haram Islamist group who claimed to be her husband.

During the April 2014 attack, Boko Haram gunmen arrived in Chibok at night and raided the school dormitories, loading 276 girls onto trucks.

More than 50 managed to escape within hours, mostly by jumping off the lorries and running into roadside bushes, leaving 219 in the hand of Boko Haram.

The abduction led to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which was supported by US First Lady Michelle Obama and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai.

Bring Back Our Girls campaigners in Abuja, Nigeria - January 2016AFP
The Bring Back Our Girls campaigners and relatives of the girls have marched in Abuja to demand more be done to rescue them

Boko Haram at a glance:

  • Founded in 2002, initially focused on opposing Western-style education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
  • Launched military operations in 2009
  • Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, and hundreds abducted
  • Joined so-called Islamic State, now calls itself IS's "West African province"
  • Seized large area in north-east, where it declared caliphate
  • Regional force has now retaken most of that territory

Who are Boko Haram?


Source http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36338989

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