Amina Ali Nkeki with Nigerian soldiers after her escape. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images
The families of the only schoolgirl to successfully escape from Boko Haram has cried out for help as they have not been told the whereabouts of the girl since her televised meeting with the president.
Nigeria’s Bring Back Our Girls movement and family members are
demanding that the government provide news of the only schoolgirl among
219 kidnapped, to escape the clutches of Boko Haram Islamic extremists.
“Even this morning people came to my house asking if I had been
able to find out her whereabouts. It’s outrageous. Some people are
crying. We don’t understand why the government wants to keep her family
away,” said Yakubu Nkeki, an uncle of Amina Ali Nkeki.
Hunters found Ali on 17 May, wandering on the fringes of Boko
Haram’s Sambisa Forest stronghold with her four-month-old baby and the
father of the child, a Boko Haram fighter who she said had helped her
escape.
Ali was flown to the capital, Abuja, two days after her escape for a
televised meeting at which the president, Muhammadu Buhari, promised
her the best care and rehabilitation.
The Bring Back Our Girls movement says no one has seen her since,
not even leaders of the Chibok community where the girls were kidnapped.
It says Ali has said some of the girls have died but most are alive,
raising hopes they could still be rescued.
The BBOG group has asked the government what they are doing about rescuing the remaining girls in Boko Haram custody.
“It is now more than one month since Ms Ali was rescued and her
avowed restoration process by the federal government as pledged by the
president began. Having given a reasonable length of time, our movement
has a number of concerns regarding Amina Ali as well as the rest of our
Chibok girls still in the terrorist enclave,” said the statement signed by the movement’s founders Aisha Yesufu and Oby Ezekwesili.
According to The Guardian,
Government and military officials did not immediately respond to
requests for comment. It had been presumed that Ali would be debriefed
by state security agents for information that could lead to a rescue
operation, and that she would receive psychosocial care.
Nigeria’s military has freed thousands of Boko Haram captives this
year, but none of the girls kidnapped from a remote boarding school in
the north-eastern town of Chibok in April 2014.
The whereabouts of some other freed Boko Haram captives taken for
alleged debriefing and counselling by the office of the National
Security Adviser could also not be established.
Ali’s uncle said the last time he saw her and her mother, Binta
Nkeki, along with baby Safiyah, was in the office of the National
Security Adviser at the presidential villa on 19 May.
“We have had no credible information since, though I am told they are in the hands of the government,” he said.
Bring Back Our Girls also demanded the government prosecute the
father of Ali’s child, Mohammed Hayyatu, for abduction and rape. The
military has said he appears to be a Boko Haram commander and is being
held for interrogation.
“We are extremely disappointed with the evident lull in rescue actions and lack of any progress report,” the movement said.
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