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NIGERIA - CONDEMNED BUT UNDETERRED, BOKO HARAM CONTINUES TO ABDUCT
NIGERIAN YOUTH
"The kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls seem no closer to being rescued, according to diplomats, advocates and parents and relatives of the girls. The substantial international mobilization on their behalf — including intelligence assistance from the United States and others, aerial reconnaissance, a global campaign on social media, and a vigorous homegrown protest movement — has had little effect. Far from boxing in Boko Haram and forcing it to release the girls, the Nigerian Army appears to still be battling for ground in the region where the girls were kidnapped, the country’s northeast. Some parents and relatives say they have all but given up hope that the girls will be rescued. Diplomats here in Nigeria’s capital are also pessimistic."
In Nigeria, nearly 300 schoolgirls have been held captive for over a hundred days. Image CreditSunday Alamba/Associated Press
By Adam Nossiter - August 15, 2014
ABUJA,
Nigeria — The pattern is becoming all too familiar to residents of Nigeria’s
embattled northeast: Gunmen believed to be members of the militant Islamist
sect Boko Haram descend on a village, burn houses, round up scores of young
people, load them onto trucks and then drive away.
Four months after Boko Haram shocked the world by abducting nearly 300 girls from a rural school, fighters shouting “God is great”
snatched dozens more young people from another village in recent days,
according to officials, local journalists and Nigerian news media.
This time, the target was boys and
young men, who were waved into trucks at gunpoint, prompting fears that they
would be hauled off and forced to fight for the militants in their war against
the Nigerian state. Ahmed Zannah of Borno State, which has been
battered by the Islamist insurgency for years, confirmed the latest abductions
but said that Chadian soldiers had since freed the kidnap victims. The group
had been taken to an island in Lake Chad, he said, where the soldiers rescued
them. His account could not be independently verified.
The kidnapped
schoolgirls, by contrast, seem no closer to being rescued, according to
diplomats, advocates and parents and relatives of the girls. The substantial
international mobilization on their behalf — including intelligence assistance
from the United States and others, aerial reconnaissance, a global campaign on
social media, and a vigorous homegrown protest movement — has had little
effect.
Far from boxing in Boko Haram and forcing it to release the girls, the Nigerian Army appears to still be battling for ground in the region where the girls were kidnapped, the country’s northeast.
Some parents and relatives say they
have all but given up hope that the girls will be rescued. Diplomats here in
Nigeria’s capital are also pessimistic.
“I don’t think we are significantly closer to
seeing them released,” said one Western diplomat.
“It’s not looking real good,” said a second
Western diplomat.
Boko Haram continues to make gains, planting
bombs in cities and taking over towns, largely unchecked by an army ravaged by
what diplomats say are corruption and morale problems. The diplomats spoke
anonymously because none were authorized by their governments to speak openly
about the efforts to rescue the kidnap victims.
Though the army
recently recaptured at least one town lost to the militants, the sect still
operates across big stretches of the region. It was from Chibok, a village
about 80 miles south of Maiduguri, the regional capital where the group came
into being, that the girls were abducted on April 14. The latest attack was
reported to take place well north of Maiduguri, in the fishing community of
Doron Baga, one of the many villages and towns in the state to be troubled
by militants in recent months.
Boko Haram “can do whatever they want,” the
second diplomat here said.
The diplomats fear that Boko Haram is closing
in on Maiduguri, a metropolis of over 1 million people, pointing to recent
incursions by the Islamists. In December, an air force base was attacked, and
in March, the Islamists freed prisoners from a military barracks, leading to a
deadly episode in which the Nigerian military killed hundreds of fighters and fleeing detainees.
“A lot of people are
talking about the defense of Maiduguri; people are concerned: it gets attacked
and it falls,” the second diplomat said. “I don’t know that they can pull it
off,” the diplomat said of a possible defense of the city by Nigeria’s armed
forces, adding that they “have done nothing.”
The first diplomat agreed: “The threat to
Maiduguri is significant.”
There is deep
skepticism among Western representatives here about the capabilities of the
Nigerian military after years of kickbacks and wasteful spending. A $6 billion
defense budget has failed to produce a fighting force capable of containing the
Islamists.
“The extent to which it has been
hollowed out by corruption and is a total void is just stunning,” said a third
Western diplomat here. “You would think they would be up in arms. But nobody
seems to care.”
Senior Nigerian
officials have said several times in recent months the government knows where
the kidnapped girls are — in the more than 20,000-square-mile Sambisa Forest,
divided into perhaps six groups — based on American aerial surveillance and
reconnaissance efforts by the Nigerians themselves.
“I
think they know where groups of the girls are,” the second diplomat said. “They
have a geographic idea where they are.”
Yet knowing where they are, and
extracting them from the clutches of Boko Haram, are two different things. Any
military operation to rescue them, even a skilled one, would almost certainly
result in deaths among the girls.
Still, negotiations for the release
of imprisoned Boko Haram operatives — a steadfast goal of the group — carry
risks as well. Nigeria has in its prisons some of the sect’s most hardened
militants and it is not anxious to give them up. It has so far denied that
talks have been taking place, or will. But some diplomats are convinced that
negotiations are necessary.
With all the criticism, diplomats
here concede that the Nigerian government has a difficult hand to play — one
that would be challenging for any country. “They are in a very tough spot,”
said the third diplomat. President Goodluck Jonathan “is in a jam on this, no
doubt.”
Some parents and relatives have
given up hope that the Chibok girls will be seen again.
“I am apprehensive about the whole
issue; there is no hint about a rescue operation,” said Allen Manasseh, a
Chibok native and cousin of several kidnap victims who has emerged as a
spokesman for some of the parents. “As to how far they have gone to rescuing
them, we have not seen any different movement by the military.”
“The fact is that the BH” — Boko
Haram — “is still attacking villages daily,” Mr. Manasseh said. “They are still
moving on the federal road, in broad daylight. They can go out without
interference.”
The parents say the circumstances on
the ground augur ill for a quick resolution.
“The government is not serious about
the rescue,” said Samuel Yaga, whose daughter Sarah, 17, remains in captivity.
“The time is too much,” he said, speaking at one of the daily rallies for the
girls here — by now a sparsely attended affair in central Abuja.
“We expect the government to have done something,” said Ayuba Alamson, a cousin of some of the victims. “The effort is not sufficient,” he said. “I have lost confidence in the military. If they were doing anything, they would have curtailed these attacks.”