Photo: Security walk past burned the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, where over 230 students were abducted, Chibok, Borno State.
Parents of more than 230 girls abducted from their boarding school by Nigerian Islamists linked to al-Qaeda have had to call off their search for their missing daughters because of a lack of police back-up.
Several parents described how they were forced to carry out their own search for the girls without help from authorities, but had to pull back when they were close to where they believe the hostages were being held, in a dense forest.
“We formed a search party, riding on motorcycles into the forest, searching several places until a man gave us information that he saw our girls with the abductors ahead,” said Shettima Haruna, whose daughter is missing.
“The man actually told us that our children were not far away. But he warned that the abductors were well armed and kill at will, so we decided to save our lives and returned.” Another father, Shettima Hamma, confirmed the search party had to give up because they had no armed support.
“We trailed the abductors of our daughters far into very dangerous places inside the forest, but we couldn’t go further because we have no sophisticated weapons that could match that of those holding our daughters,” he said.