Apart from Chibok girls, Boko Haram actually kidnapped 501 school children in 2014 under Jonathan – Report
- Many Nigerians may not have known that the Boko Haram insurgents also abducted 501 school children from Damasak
- The Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed this adding that the government has refused to speak concerning it
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has revealed that up to about 501 school children went missing in 2014 in the heat of Boko Haram when President Goodluck Jonathan was still Nigeria’s president.
Hundreds of school children were reportedly abducted in Damasak
HRW on Thursday, March 30 described this as the largest ever level of abduction in the northeastern part of the country.
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Reports say Boko Haram kidnapped the hundreds of children in Damasak on November 24, 2014, and that HRW confirmed this in a dispatch from researcher Mausi Segun.
According to Segun, traditional leaders as said they submitted a list of 501 missing children to police and local government officials in April 2015, when the town was briefly freed from Boko Haram, but have never received a response.
NAIJ.com reports that the presidency at the period is still being accused of being slow to act in the separate abduction of 276 girls from a school in Chibok.
Nothing has been heard about the kidnapped children in Damasak
Vanguard quotes Segun as saying: “While international attention and concern has focused on the April 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction, hundreds of other children are also missing in Nigeria’s beleaguered northeast.
“Authorities should provide regular updates to relatives about efforts to locate and rescue all victims of Boko Haram abductions.”
The report noted that the country’s military had rescued thousands of Boko Haram captives in the past months and taken over towns from the terrorist group.
According to the report, Damasak was taken over by Boko Haram insurgents who also started teaching school children in the schools in the town.
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“After two years, parents of the missing children are desperate for information, but have received little more than rumours,” Segun writes.
The military is yet to confirm or deny this.
Watch what survivors of Boko Haram attacks now undergo: