The last time Manasseh Allen saw his teenage cousin was at a family wedding two years ago. She was a shy girl focused on her studies, Mr. Allen recalled, and the moment the wedding was over, she rushed back to her school to study for exams.
Only days later, Boko Haram fighters stormed her school in the Nigerian town of Chibok, torching the buildings and kidnapping Mr. Allen’s cousin, Maryamu Wavi, along with nearly 300 other girls, most of whom have not been heard from since.
The mass abduction, on April 14, 2014, was just one of hundreds of acts of brutality that Boko Haram has rained down on West Africa in recent years. But it captured the world’s attention and horror like no other, spurring an international campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls and even drawing Michelle Obama to the cause.
Ever since, protesters have regularly marched outside government buildings and along grassy medians in Nigeria’s capital. Other nations, including the United States, have joined Nigeria’s battle against Boko Haram. Drones fly over Sambisa Forest, where intelligence officials believe fighters are hiding the girls, and soldiers are freeing villages from Boko Haram control.
Yet two years later, nearly all of the Chibok schoolgirls are still missing.
“Nobody knows where they are,” said Garba Shehu, a spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. “I don’t know where they are. I don’t know. But we are hoping if they are found in one location, they should be rescued.”
The government says it has been scrutinizing a video that was apparently made in late December in which schoolgirls recite their names and say whether they have converted to Islam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/world/africa/nigeria-boko-haram.html