Chibok abduction 10 years on

A decade ago, on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok. The majority of the girls, ages 16 to 18, were from families of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria). The group also included Muslim girls.

EYN for several years had already been suffering attacks by the militant Islamist group with the stated purpose to oppose “western education.”

The abduction quickly gained worldwide attention and the Chibok girls became a social media phenomenon supported by a variety of celebrities using the hashtag: #BringBackOurGirls. In Nigeria’s capital city Abuja, and elsewhere around the globe, people held demonstrations and vigils. The Nigerian government engaged in a variety of actions to gain the girls’ release, including military attacks on the Sambisa Forest wilderness where Boko Haram had its main encampment.

The girls from Chibok are not the only ones to have been abducted. “Boko Haram has targeted schools as part of its campaign of atrocities in north-eastern Nigeria since 2010,” reported The Guardian on Feb. 20 this year. “It has carried out massacres and multiple abductions, including 2014’s killing of 59 schoolboys, the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014 and 101 girls in Dapchi in 2018. . . . Between 2013 and 2018, according to the UN, Boko Haram abducted more than 1,000 children, using them as soldiers and domestic or sex slaves. Amnesty International has estimated that 1,436 schoolchildren and 17 teachers were abducted between December 2020 and October 2021.”

A mass kidnapping by Boko Haram took place as recently as early March this year, when dozens of people were abducted from a camp for displaced people in a remote area near Lake Chad. This, despite Borno State government claims that 95 percent of Boko Haram fighters are either dead or have surrendered, according to a report from the BBC.

The church’s response

The 2014 attack on the school in Chibok—which had gotten its start many decades previously as a Church of the Brethren mission school—gave urgency to a church response. By the time Boko Haram violence escalated into a full-blown insurgency just a few months later, and the EYN Headquarters and Kulp Theological Seminary in Kwarhi were violently overtaken in October 2014, the denominational staff and Mission and Ministry Board had created the Nigeria Crisis Response.

Carried out as a collaboration between EYN and the US church’s Global Mission and Brethren Disaster Ministries, the Nigeria Crisis Response raised millions of dollars. As of early 2024, the total spent to aid Nigerians affected by the violence has come to $6.17 million—which includes related grants from the Emergency Disaster Fund and $1 million “seed money” designated from denominational reserves by the Mission and Ministry Board in October 2014. An additional $575,000 has supported the work through other grants, reported Roy Winter, executive director of Service Ministries. “This is the largest crisis or disaster response program” in Church of the Brethren history, he said.

At a crucial meeting in July 2014, the Mission and Ministry Board heard alarm bells from then-mission executive Jay Wittmeyer: “There’s a long history of violence in Nigeria. But when Stan [Noffsinger, then general secretary] and I were there in April, it looked like an armed insurgency, even the beginnings of a civil war. The situation has shifted dramatically during my time in this office. In three states in northeast Nigeria, where EYN has most of its churches, 250,000 people have been displaced.”

More than 10,000 members of EYN died in the violence. The list of those names was displayed at Annual Conference and National Older Adult Conference. A Brethren Press book, We Bear It in Tears by Carol Mason and Donna Parcell, shared stories of survivors.

Leaders and staff of EYN with leadership from then EYN president Samuel Dali and his wife, Rebecca, despite undergoing displacement themselves, worked tirelessly to preserve their church through continuing violence after 2014. The partnership with the American church through the Nigeria Crisis Response provided a lifeline.

Although the Chibok girls were just a few hundred of the many thousands of Nigerian Brethren who were suffering, their plight was not forgotten. Top EYN leadership were involved alongside the EYN disaster relief staff in meetings with the Chibok community soon after the abductions, and offered trauma healing for the Chibok parents. “The parents of the Chibok girls have suffered greatly,” said a report from one event.

Leading EYN members worked with some of the girls who escaped, helping them further their education. A handful of the women received scholarships to study at the college level in the US and elsewhere.

In 2017, EYN president Joel Billi stood alongside Chibok parents during a mass release of 82 of the girls—the result of a Nigerian government negotiation and prisoner swap with the militants.

For the American church, support for the girls quickly focused on prayer. Very soon after the abduction, in May 2014, a letter was mailed to each Church of the Brethren congregation sharing the names of 180 girls who were still captive, with each name assigned to six congregations for prayer. Even today, some of those names remain on congregations’ prayer lists.

“When asked what the American church can do at this time to be supportive, EYN leaders asked for us to engage in prayer and fasting,” the letter explained. “Most of the girls abducted from Chibok were from Christian and Brethren homes, but many were from Muslim homes, and we are not making a distinction between them in our prayers. It is important for us to pray for the safety of all children.”

Where are they now?

A few girls escaped almost immediately, and within the first few days of the abduction 61 had escaped.

In 2016, another escaped, one was killed by her captors, one was rescued by the Nigerian military, and the Nigerian government negotiated the release of 21 with help from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Swiss government.

In May 2017, 82 were released in another government negotiation. Since then, 19 more have been released.

“Now, as at the last report we have, 82 girls are held captive,” said Mbursa Jinatu, EYN head of Media. “We continue to pray on their behalf for their safe return home.”

Regular updates have been provided to EYN by Yakubu Nkeki, chair of the Chibok Parents Association, “who is a victim himself as his niece was among those abducted,” said Jinatu.

For many of the women who escaped or were released, return to daily life has been difficult. Post traumatic stress disorder has been among the effects. Some were forced into marriage with Boko Haram fighters and bore children that they may or may not have been able to bring out of captivity. Some have not been accepted back into their families. Some who were coerced into joining the insurgency, and carried weapons alongside their captors, have had to undergo re-education.

Today, the Chibok area continues to be one of the hardest hit, with attacks reported even in recent months. A Chibok advocacy group reported that between the outbreak of the Boko Haram insurgency and February 2022, their area had been attacked more than 72 times and more than 407 people had been killed.

The Chibok chapter of Bring Back Our Girls is planning an event to mark the decade since the abductions, inviting dignitaries such as the Borno State governor to join in praying for the safe return of those still held captive.

“Kudos are due for all the churches who prayed and gave sacrificially over the time when the Church of the Brethren made this a priority,” said former staff of the Nigeria Crisis Response, Carl and Roxane Hill, reflecting on the past decade. “It was a time that brought everyone together, regardless of our differences, in support of our fellow Brethren in Africa.”