Hon MS Maila
Motion on Nigerian girls reunited with families after Boko Haram kidnapping
The African National Congress moves without notice: That the House
1) notes that the schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram jihadist group in Dapchi, north-eastern Nigeria, were reunited with their families on Sunday 26th March 2018 after spending nearly five weeks in captivity;
2) further notes that the 105 girls, covered head to toe in burkas, arrived aboard five buses in the town of Dapchi, in Yobe state, where they met their parents at the boarding school where they were snatched on February 19 2018;
3) acknowledges that the girls were among 111 who were seized, of whom five died apparently during the violent hostage-taking or in the trucks that took them away;
4) recalls that after their release on Wednesday they spent three days in the national capital Abuja where they met President Muhammadu Buhari;
5) understands that their release left one schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, still in the hands of the kidnappers, reportedly because she is a Christian who refused to convert to Islam;
6) believes that the Dapchi kidnapping revived painful memories in Nigeria of the April 2014 abduction of over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, a town also in the northeast, which caused global outrage;
7) calls on Nigerian government to do everything in their power to obtain the remaining girls' freedom including Leah Sharibu; and
8) commends the government of Nigeria for successfully securing the release of the 105 girls through negotiations with the militants.
