Multiple outlets are reporting that a young woman intercepted in Cameroon on Friday claims to be one of the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok, Nigeria, in April 2014. Some reports say the girl—one of two arrested in northern Cameroon on Friday 25 March—turned herself in to police rather than detonating the twelve kilos of explosives she was carrying. Others say she and a similarly equipped companion were intercepted by police and she subsequently claimed to be one of the Chibok girls.
The regional governor of Cameroon’s Extrême-Nord, Midjiyawa Bakari, told Agence France Presse that such claims must be investigated “with great prudence,” noting that, among other things, suicide bombers are often drugged and hence unreliable. The governor added that the claim was being investigated and thanked a local “comité de vigilance” that he said had noticed the would-be bombers searching for a place to detonate themselves on the busy Easter weekend.
Approximately 70 percent of Cameroonians are Christians and about 21 percent Muslim. In the Extrême-Nord region, which borders Nigeria, neighbors have been taking turn about—on Fridays, Christians provide security at the local mosques. On Sundays, Muslims stand guard at churches. Either of these arrangements is guaranteed to enrage Boko Haram, which has encountered significant setbacks in Cameroon since the beginning of the year.
The possibility that Boko Haram have been using the unfortunate Chibok schoolgirls as plastique fodder shines a discomfiting light on the self-consoling #BringBackOurGirls campaign of spring 2014. A March 24 announcement by the Nigerian military that troops have freed about 800 Boko Haram hostages in Borno state, where Chibok is, has not so far been accompanied by any announcements regarding the abducted girls. The military’s figures have not been independently confirmed.
