People_USA_June_26_2017

schools. With this group of girls’ kidnapping, the
world took notice, rallying around the hashtag
#BringBackOurGirls, which went viral within
weeks of the abduction. Politicians and celebrities
alike—including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama,
Ellen DeGeneres and Angelina Jolie—called for
the girls’ safe return. Lydia, now 19, and Joy, now
20, were among the few dozen who managed to
escape that same night. And, while more than 100
girls have since been released as a result of government
negotiations with Boko Haram (82 were sent
home in exchange for five Boko Haram prisoners
just this past May), more than 100 still remain
missing. Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari
has vowed to bring all the girls back, tweeting in
January, “I’m hopeful that soon Chibok community,
Nigeria and, indeed, the world, will welcome
the remaining girls back home.”
In the meantime Lydia and Joy have spent nearly
three years carving out a new life in America. With
help from a nonprofit human rights group in Virginia
called the Jubilee Campaign, they arrived
here in August 2014, attending boarding school
for two years in Virginia before transferring last
summer to the Canyonville Christian Academy, a
boarding school nestled in the scenic mountains
of Oregon. On June 3 the girls graduated from the
academy, and this fall both will attend college at
Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla. After
growing up in modest homes in Chibok, with no
running water and no computers, both say their
lives today—and the education and opportunities
that lie ahead—seem like “a dream” come true.
THE MISSING GIRLS
Image taken from video
by Boko Haram allegedly shows
the kidnapped girls.
1
That dream seemed impossible on that terrifying
night at their school in Nigeria. “They say if each
girl try to run, they will shoot the girl,” Lydia says,
recalling how the terrorists took control, setting
fires and looting supplies. “Then we start seeing
the burning everywhere.” As the school’s compound
went up in flames around them, the men
threw stolen food into waiting cars and ordered
the girls to follow on foot. They walked fast, some
of them without shoes, down a dusty back road to
a bridge, where they were all forced to pile into
three open-air trucks. “I was thinking, ‘Am I ever
going to see my mom again?’” says Joy, who
remembers “many, many” girls jammed into each
vehicle. “They said to live is to enter the truck, to
die is to stay outside,” she adds, noting that her
truck was so high off the ground, she had to use a
small car as a step-up to get in. The convoy of
trucks and girls roared off, with cars full of
armed men surrounding them on all sides.
On the trucks the terrified girls frantically
discussed jumping. Lydia recalls a friend
saying it was better to take the risk than to
disappear forever—right before she jumped.
Lydia prayed, then followed her friend, landing
hard on the ground, a searing pain in her
hips as she scrambled up and, right behind her
friend, headed blindly into the thick, thorny
bushes. “We ran and ran,” she says, “[hoping]
we would find our way in the darkness.”
Joy was debating whether to jump as well. She
heard a girl say it would be better to die there—at
least their parents would find a corpse—and felt a
LIFE IN
AMERICA
1. Joy (left) and
Lydia signing
yearbooks on the
last day of school
at the Canyonville
Christian
Academy. 2. Joy,
marching with her
fellow students,
during rehearsal
for the senior
class graduation.
3. Lydia (center)
walks out of the
gym with her
diploma following
the graduation.
4. The academy
has a diverse
range of
international
students, where
Lydia (second
from right) and
Joy (third from
left) fit right
in—and have
hadachance
tomakelotsof
new friends.
INSET, BOTTOM LEFT: AP
80
June 26, 2017 PEOPLE