• Parents compile 105 names of missing girls
  •  Insist news of death of 2 girls false

TIMOTHY OLANREWAJU, who was in Dapchi

 

Facts surrounding last Monday’s abduction of school girls at Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Borno State have been unfolding as survivors give details of how the insurgents tricked the students to follow them in a truck at dusk to unknown destination.

Survivors said the insurgents who dressed in military camouflage, came in two 4-wheel drive vehicles painted in military colour. First, they fired few shots into the air to create an atmosphere of confusion, which made the students run out of mosques and other places. Thereafter, they beckoned on the fleeing students to come to them, pretending to be helpers, the same ploy the insurgents used in the abduction of over 200 Chibok girls in April 2014. 

Playing a usual script

When the insurgents struck at the college on Monday, many thought it was a mere show of presence especially as neither government nor the military came out with any information about the incident. By late Tuesday, it became clearer that a repeat of the Chibok saga had played out at Dapchi, a serene town in central Yobe.

Ya’Ari Ari, a cook at the school revealed activities that followed the arrival of Boko Haram at the school premises about 7pm that fateful Monday: “We just distributed food with three other staff and there was shortage. We had just finished when we started hearing gunshots. We abandoned everything we were doing and fled into the bush. By that time, Boko Haram had entered the school premises.”

She said two vehicles were driven into the school premises by the insurgents while another vehicle waited outside the gate. “They were calling on the girls to come and we all thought they were soldiers who came to rescue us from the gunshots,” she said.

No doubt, Boko Haram played the usual script of deceit to whisk away the unsuspecting girls in the dark, many residents of Dapchi said.

“We were in the mosque performing ablution for magrib prayers when we started hearing gunshots within the school premises. Then many of us ran in different directions. That was when Boko Haram men were calling on us saying,  ‘come to us, we are here to help you. We don’t want anybody to harm you, we are here to assist you,” Fatima Kachalla, a Senior Secondary School (SSS II) student revealed in an interview with Sunday Sun at Dapchi.

Fatima, 15, was together with her sister, Aisha, when the insurgents struck. But while Fatima fled through the school perimeter fence, her sister now missing headed for where Boko Haram parked their vehicles. It was a costly mistake that has brought sadness to the Kachalla family.

Parents list 105 girls missing

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While the authorities were yet to ascertain the number of missing or kidnapped girls at the school and those that have been found, parents of the abducted students said 105 girls were missing. Sunday Sun also discovered that many of the parents, who are traumatized by the incident, have formed a forum to mount pressure on government to intensify efforts on the rescue of the girls. Leader of the parents of the missing girls, Bashir Manzu, said parents whose daughters have not been found since Tuesday, a day after the abduction submitted their names and that of their daughters.

“We have compiled the list of girls that are missing. So far, there are 105 girls not seen yet. We have found out from the parents and we also got the parents’ phone numbers,” Bashir said.

His daughter, Fatima, an SS II student, is among the 105 still missing. He told Sunday Sun his daughter was always in the first or second position in the class. He described as false, reports of death of two of the missing girls. “It is not true that two of the girls died as reported in the media. Where did they die? If somebody dies, at least you bring the corpse of that person. We don’t believe such report until we see the corpses,” he said.         

A botched or deferred dream

Aisha Wakil, 13, had always wished to be very educated but her abduction last Monday may have differed her dream. “She has always said she wanted to be somebody important in life with good education,” her father, 68-year-old Wakil Zanna said. He said the incident had raised his blood pressure, forcing him to be admitted in the hospital. “I’ve been sick since Tuesday after I realized my daughter, Aisha, was among the missing girls. I was discharged on Thursday from the hospital,” the father of five disclosed.

Aisha, the second child of the family is in SS I. She joined the college last year after completing her junior secondary school education in another school in the area with high hopes of a successful academic career. Her father said the Monday abduction might be a clog in the wheel of her educational pursuit. He said his daughter visited the house last weekend, playing with her siblings, unknown to her that calamity was in the offing. He expressed the hope that his daughter and others would soon return home safely.

Anxiety and sadness were palpable when Sunday Sun reporter visited Dapchi. Families of the missing girls wept uncontrollably. A lady whose younger sister is among the kidnapped girls expressed her frustration on the Boko Haram conflict “I am fed up with this crisis. Let Allah just end it or destroy the world,” she declared, amid wailing from other family members.

The school, located on the outskirts of the town is deserted as the authorities announced suspension of all activities for a week last Tuesday.

The Federal Government said it was working in collaboration with the Yobe State Government and security agencies to ascertain the number of girls kidnapped and those who have been found. Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed who led a delegation of the Federal Government to Dapchi last Thursday said the government could not give the actual number of the girls kidnapped or missing.    

“What we know for a fact now is that we cannot account for some students. But since two days ago, students have also been reporting back to school. We also have it on good authority that some of them have phoned from their hiding places even in Damaturu. We cannot say categorically the certain numbers of students that have been kidnapped.   

“A few students can be accounted for and this is because some of them are still trickling back from their hiding places. Give us few more days, we will be able to check the situation of things,” the minister who was accompanied by the Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Khadija Abba Ibrahim said during the visit. He said responses of the military and that of the Yobe State government after the incident were commendable, even as he assured the military was up and doing in the search for the girls.