Two Chibok School girls, Hauwa Joseph and Mary Ngoshe, have escaped after spending over eight years in Boko Haram captivity. Soldiers found the girls and their kids in Borno state, Northeast Nigeria.
The girls’ escape marks the fourth known incident of the Chibok school girls regaining freedom as part of the waves of civilians and Boko Haram combatants that have fled their sanctuary after the fall of Sambisa and the death of its leader Abubakar Shekau, last year.
According to the military, an estimated 57,004 persons associated with Boko Haram, comprising of 12,547 males, 17,027 females, and 27,430 children, have surrendered to authorities.
In August, one of the missing school girls, Hassana Adamu, and her kids were handed over to the government after she fled captivity. She was found a few weeks after another girl, Ruth Pogu with kids, regained freedom after surrendering to soldiers near Bama town.
The school girls were abducted when a group of insurgents on the night of April 14, 2014, raided the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok in southern Borno.
Boko Haram, whose name in Hausa, a native language in Northern Nigeria, means “Western education is forbidden,” abducted 276 schoolgirls from the dormitory. Over a hundred school girls have so far been released or escaped, and many others are still unaccounted for.
