2 Students Kidnapped 8 Years Ago Found in Nigeria

Two female students taken in the middle of the night by Boko Haram militants from a secondary school in 2014 have been found and are receiving medical treatment, the Nigerian army said. The women apparently gave birth while held by the militants, the BBC reports, and had their children with them. The government said the women were found during military operations against extremists in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram seized 276 girls from Chibok, a town in that region, more than eight years ago. Most of them escaped or have been released by now, but the organization Bring Back Our Girls says about 100 are still missing.

Some of the young women were forced to convert to Islam and marry Boko Haram fighters while being held. In the first few hours after the kidnapping, 57 students got away, most of them by jumping off trucks and fleeing into bushes. The first of them was found in May 2016. About 100 were released between 2016 and 2018 as a result of Nigeria-Boko Haram negotiations, with the government reportedly paying the militants $3.3 million. Nigeria has stopped those efforts, per the BBC, and the families of those kidnapped more recently have had to pay ransoms on their own. (More Boko Haram stories.)