Are The Chibok Girls Alive? As Nigerian Military Comb Sambisa Forest, Hunt Boko Haram Fighters

by Musa Abdullahi

A detachment of the Nigerian military has stormed the Sambisa Forest in Borno State to dislodge members of the violent sect, Boko Haram, who are believed to have used the forest as their stronghold, from where they unleash their terrorist activities.

Sambisa Forest believed to be the most feared hideout of the militants, where over 200 schoolgirls, who were abducted from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014, were held captive.

As the troops comb the forest, are the 219 who are still missing alive? A total of 276  Chibok school girls according to Jonathan’s Presidential committee were abducted out of which 57 of them had escaped and had since been reunited with their family.

Military sources told Punch Newspaper on Wednesday that “troops have commenced a major operation in Sambisa to clean the forest of terrorists.”

The source did not, however, specify how many of the militants had been captured, but said the “insurgents will be flushed out soon.”

On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276[1] female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram, an Islamic Jihadist and terrorist organization based in northeast Nigeria.

Sambisa Forest and Sambisa Forest Reserve are located in Nigeria. It was a game reserve in colonial times.

It covers an area of approximately 60,000 square kilometers in Nigeria’s northeast, in the states of Borno, Yobe, Gombe, and Bauchi, along the Darazo corridor, Jigawa, up to some parts of Kano State in the far north.

In 1991, the then Borno State government incorporated it into the Chad Basin National Park with a total area of about 2,258 square kilometres.

This Chad Basin National Park also included the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands in modern day Yobe State.