Chibok: Parents Mobilize To Go In Search Of Abducted Daughters In Sambisa Forest

Distraught parents of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and many residents of the community have expressed concern that almost three months after the girls have remained in Boko Haram captivity, they are left with no option than to go into the dreaded Sambisa Forest and rescue the girls, even if they die trying.

The parents added that they would be happy to receive the corpses of their daughters for decent burial and mourn them than having them with the terrorists without knowing what their fate is.

This was the position of some of the parents, who spoke with LEADERSHIP in a telephone interview in Maiduguri yesterday.

But the Borno State chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Reverend Titus Pona, has stated that stakeholders in the area are now trying to reason with the parents not to embark on the deadly mission to Sambisa Forest.

Pona, who spoke from Chibok, his home town yesterday, said his people are in a complete state of despair and have already started mobilising themselves in order to risk their lives by going in search of the girls.

He said, “We have been trying our best to console the poor parents who have been badly devastated by the kidnap of their girls; the situation is very pathetic in Chibok town and the people are begging to take actions on their own.

“We have been pleading with them not to embark on such dangerous mission into the forest; that is what we can do for now; but how long are we going to continue holding them down?

“We went round to see some of the parents and their families; it was a very pathetic sight; some of them were crying and asking that they would be happy to receive the corpses of their daughters so that they can bury them and mourn them decently, than having them out there in the bush, without knowing what is happening to them”.

Pona said as religious leaders, they have done what they could do under the present circumstance to console the parents, who feel government is not doing enough to rescue the girls and bring them out of their present psychological trauma.