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Hope for Nigerian School Girl Rescue Dwindles

CBN

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Hopes of rescuing the more than 200 kidnapped Christian school girls in Nigeria are dwindling. Six months after their abduction, negotiations for their release and a brokered ceasefire have now collapsed.

The Nigerian government recently raised expectations that a negotiated ceasefire with Boko Haram would lead to the release of the 219 kidnapped girls.

Family members and advocates were optimistic.

"We are still watching. We are extremely anxious," said Aisha Yesufu, head of the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign.

But the ceasefire fell apart and fighting with the Islamic terrorist group continues. Many people now believe all the girls may never be recovered.

"We are not sure that Boko Haram is even capable of retrieving the girls that they are promising to release to the government at the moment. So there is a mixture," Professor Peyi Soyinka Airewele, of Ithaca University, said.

"I believe that they married some off to their own warlords and have scattered some of them far across the region," she said.

The Nigeria analyst confirmed pervious claims that some of the kidnapped girls have actually been used in suicide bomb attacks. She said if some are girls are freed they may not be the girls who were kidnapped last April in Chibok.

"They have continued abducting more women over the past few days since the ceasefire was announced. And it's believed by observers in some of the villages that the Boko Haram only intends to release the new victims that they have recently abducted, and not the girls from Chibok," she said.

Of the 276 school girls -- many of them Christians who were kidnapped at their boarding school -- 57 eventually escaped from captivity. An international outcry ensued over the kidnappings and demonstrations called #BringBackOurGirls went viral on the Internet and around the world.

President Barack Obama was even moved to take action. He sent a team of security advisers to Nigeria to help the rescue effort.

But Pofessor Airewele said many Nigerians believe their military is incapable of defeating Boko Haram, despite U.S. assistance.

"The military is certainly floundering, it is struggling, has not been very successful," she explained.

Airewele said the Nigerian Army alone cannot defeat Islamic extremism. She suggests before change can take place, progressives and Muslims must admit religion plays a role in the violence.

"Those who are Muslims today might have to do some critical self-assessment of the realty of how the faith has been utilized to wage war against their fellow citizens," she said.

"Even on the day that the ceasefire was announced, towns were attacked, people were killed, and flags were hoisted by Boko Haram," Aisha Yesufu said.

After waiting for half a year, the families of the girls are growing impatient. They are still hoping and praying for a breakthrough that will finally bring back their girls.

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