How Chibok Hostages Were Freed From Boko Haram

Wall Street Journal gives inside account of the ransom mission to #BringBackOurGirls.

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (R) looks on while his wife Dolapo (C) comforts one of the 21 freed Chibok girls freed today from Boko Haram, at his office in Abuja on October 13, 2016.      (PHILIP OJISUA/AFP/Getty Images)
Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (R) looks on while his wife Dolapo (C) comforts one of the 21 freed Chibok girls freed today from Boko Haram, at his office in Abuja on October 13, 2016. (PHILIP OJISUA/AFP/Getty Images)

Three years after the April 14, 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls from their beds at the Government Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria by the notorious terror group Boko Haram, the country’s government seemed to score a major victory this past May. That’s when 82 of the girls were released by the Islamic terror group, eight months after 21 others were freed.

As The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday in a gripping profile, the release is the culmination of nearly three years of behind-the-scenes intrigue and negotiations led by Zannah Mustapha, a former Nigerian lawyer, and a Swiss diplomat, who shrouded himself in secrecy. The attention of the world had been engrossed in the plight of the Chibok Girls after a 2014 social media campaign to #BringBackOurGirls that included celebrities like First Lady Michelle Obama.

The cost of that freedom, however, may have been higher than the ransom of 3 million Euros and the release of five captured Boko Haram militants. Government officials complained that the global attention forced them into an unwanted capitulation and the ransom has helped fund more terror bombings.

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