As saith the proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked:
1 Samuel 24:13
"If it had happened anywhere else, this would be the world's biggest story. |
| Boko Haram - face of EVIL |
More than 230 girls disappeared, captured by members of a brutal terrorist group in the dead of night. Their
parents are desperate and anguished, angry that their government is not doing enough. The rest of the world is paying little attention.
The tragedy is unfolding in Nigeria, where members of the Islamist group Boko Haram grabbed the girls, most believed to be between 16 and 18, from their dormitories in the middle of the night in mid-April and took them deep into the jungle. A few dozen of the students managed to escape and tell their story. The others have vanished. (Roughly 200 girls remain missing.)
The latest reports from people living in the forest say Boko Haram fighters are sharing the girls, conducting mass marriages, selling them each for $12. One community elder explained the practice as "a medieval kind of slavery."
The Nigerian government allayed international concerns when it reported -- incorrectly -- that it had rescued most of the girls. But the girls were still in captivity. Their parents raised money to arrange private expeditions into the jungle. They found villagers who had seen the hostages with heavily armed men.
Relatives are holding street protests to demand more help from the government.
It's the Nigerian version of the same dispute that brought 9/11 to the United States;
Boko Haram wants to impose its strict interpretation of Sharia -- Islamic law. It operates mostly in the northern part of Nigeria, a country divided between a Muslim-majority north and a Christian-majority south. Islamic rule is its larger objective, but its top priority, judging from the group's name, explains why it has gone after girls going to school.
Boko Haram, in the local Hausa language, means roughly "Western education is sin."
But women are just the beginning, and Boko Haram goes about its goals not only by kidnapping, but also by slaughtering men and women of all ages and of any religion." CNN
Other reports that also could not be verified said some have been taken across borders, to Chad, Cameroon and to an island in Lake Chad. The reports come from parents and legislators who are in touch with villagers who have seen the girls with their abductors." USAToday
