Majority Christian, minority Muslim according to what I read at the time. It really is irrelevant in this case, though. As noted Boko Haram didn’t kidnap them based on religion, but ostensibly because they were being educated ( probably more honestly because they wanted “officially sanctioned” sex slaves ). Boko Haram is a mishmash of religious ideology and ethnic tribalism and really and truly don’t give a shit about any Muslims not in their in-group.
Spoiler Alert: It is.
Or, at least, predisposition for being an extremist asshole certainly gets passed along.
There were already a few of the Nigerian girls rescued earlier. They told of being raped daily by 10-16 men so it’s not really that surprising that girls in their most fertile age gets impregnated by this. The (much younger) Yazhid and Christian girls which have been released from ISIS in Iraq are it appears also pregnant a lot of them, and now having abortions.
The problem is there’s nothing “extreme” about what Boko Haram is doing. Sex slavery is the normal condition for adolescent girls in northern Nigeria and has been for some decades. The hashtag-activism idiots don’t understand this, and are on about the same level of insight about the situation as Michelle Obama dourly posing with a “bring back our girls” sign while her husband continues to drop bombs on girls, boys, and everyone else.
It’s easy to think that if we just kill a few hundred “extremists” everything will be fine, because changing entire cultures and religions is hard and might require getting off Twitter.
I know absolutely nothing about the Nigerian military. It seems like these rescues are all happening at once…which is good…but took a long, long time to happen…which isn’t so good.
Was it that they needed to build up their force, train new units, gather intelligence, and plan the operation, and this all took time?
The current president’s term is up at the end of the month, which might have something to do with it.
I wish you would stop being such a Pollyanna about everything!
If only.
There was basically zero political will to deal with this. It’s a complex and messy crisis in what is seen as a hopelessly backwards and largely irrelevant region. The underpaid and poorly armed troops sent to the region certainly didn’t have much motivation (or, for that matter, ammunition) to muster any real response.
In the meantime, Nigeria’s neighbors are getting more than a little fed up with the issue. They aren’t particularly well off themselves, and they aren’t very pleased to be dealing with massive refugee streams, border raids, disrupted trade and internal recruiting.
So they have come knocking on the door of international badass Chad, who, after decades of civil war, has started providing military power across the entire region, quietly become an extremely formidable military force that isn’t at all afraid of the front lines (or the occasional human rights violation.) Chad would like to have it’s trade routes re-opened, and would prefer that particular type of extremism stay far from its borders.
So basically all of Nigeria’s neighbors, with Chad being the big player, have decided they are going to address this with or without Nigeria’s help. Luckily, with the change in government and increasing frusteratation among the populace, Nigeria is stepping up their game as well.
A new government pressure was needed, as came with the elections and the winning by Mohammed Buhariwho campaigned against the gross incompetence of the incumbent, and outside help, which came in the form of mostly the powerful Chadian armywhich is the only one in the region very skilled in real war. They also intervened in support in the Mali and were at least as good as the French special forces.
This of course is nothing but his usual hate speech by the deranged bigot, who does not know anything as proven in the other pit thread.
The Boko Haram is of course not more than a crazed cult, that has little to do with real practice, covering for bandits not very different than the Lord’s Army of Uganda. if not for the flow of the Libyan arms after 2011 and the incompetence of the prior nigerian administration they would still be extremely marginal
Yes. the loss of the trade by Chad is a great motivator, plus the Boko Haram stupidly threatening them.