National Geographic UK - 03.2020

Of the 276 Chibok students kidnapped, 112 are

still missing. Some are believed to be dead. Two

and a half years ago, the government arranged

for more than a hundred survivors to study at

a tightly controlled campus in northeastern

Nigeria. Since then, there’s been relative silence.

PATIENCE SPENT THE SUMMER after the abduction

in her village of Askira, listening to gospel music

and coming to terms, she says, with the idea that

the attack had ended her education. Esther’s

mother came to visit once, but Patience wasn’t

at home. Journalists wanted to know what hap-

pened that night; parents asked if she’d seen

their missing daughters. Repeating the story of

April 14 had become exhausting.

Patience and nine other survivors accepted an

offer to study in the United States. She embraced

the opportunity, even though neighbors in her

village warned her parents that young women

get into trouble far from home.

Around the same time Patience was preparing

to move abroad, a school security guard visited

Margee Ensign, president of the American Uni-

versity of Nigeria (AUN) campus in Yola, a city

of several hundred thousand people. She told

Ensign that her sister and 56 other girls had

escaped shortly after the attack.

Some had jumped from the trucks, grabbed

tree branches, twisted their ankles, and then run

until they found help. Others, such as Mary K.

(who asked that only her last initial be used),

had ridden with the kidnappers for hours.

When the truck stopped, Mary conspired with

her classmates in their local dialect: They’d split

into groups of two, ask to use the bathroom, and

then run. The kidnappers, arguing among them-

selves, failed to find them. It took Mary 24 hours

to get home, and when she finally did, she found

her village engulfed in fighting.

Ensign and her staff drove to Chibok and

returned with two vans of survivors who wanted

to continue their education at AUN.

“We weren’t ready,” Ensign recalls. “Boko

Haram was still in the area. But it wasn’t a hard

Students from Chibok
take pictures on the
last day of class before
final exams and then
summer recess. The
rigorous academic
schedule prepares them

for university entrance

exams. Fifteen students

have graduated from

the NFS program and

are studying at AUN.

Some return to NFS

weekly as mentors.

CHIBOK SCHOOLGIRLS 91