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