People_USA_June_26_2017

KIDNAPPED
NIGERIAN
OurJourney
GIRLS
to Freedom
IN APRIL 2014 SCHOOLGIRLS JOY BISHARA AND LYDIA POGU SURVIVED
A NIGHT OF TERROR AT THE HANDS OF INSURGENTS BOKO HARAM.
HERE IS THE STORY OF THEIR HARROWING ESCAPE By ABIGAIL PESTA
It was late on the night of April 14, 2014, in the Nigerian town
of Chibok when two armed men burst into the Government
Girls Secondary School, where seniors Joy Bishara, then 17,
and Lydia Pogu, then 16, were among hundreds of teenage
girls in their beds, fast asleep. Carrying guns, the men began
herding the frightened girls into a group, as more armed men
arrived—now shouting, “Allahu akbar!” (“God is great” in
Arabic), the telltale rallying cry of Nigeria’s ruthless terrorist
group Boko Haram. “We were all crying and screaming,” says
Joy, recalling how, as they fired their guns into the air, the
terrorists started bragging about burning down schools and
churches and slaughtering innocent pastors and students.
“They told us to keep quiet or else they’re going to kill us.”
Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 girls that night, spiriting
them away into the dense African bush. Weeks later, in
early May, the group released a video showing its leader in
fatigues, threatening to sell the girls as slaves—yet another
atrocity in the rebels’ ongoing reign of terror. Boko Haram’s
insurgency began in 2009 and has since become a source of
fear and chaos, massacring thousands and driving millions
from their homes in recent years, in a bid to create an Islamic
state and wipe out Western influence from the country’s
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June 26, 2017 PEOPLE