PHOTOS: Three Chibok girls are now schooling abroad

Three of the abducted Chibok girls who were among the lucky few who escaped Boko Haram captivity, Mercy, Sarah and Deborah are now in High School at Canyonville Christian Academy, in Oregon,USA. The girls will be in Canyonville for two years,where it costs around $40,000 a girl per year for housing, tuition, and other expenses, Cosmopolitan reports.


Reflecting on how the Boko Haram members invaded their school in 2014, Grace who slept through the sounds of gunfire on the night of the incident, said she woke up when her roommate Mary prodded her, “Get up!” “They said they were soldiers. They said they were there to protect us, “They told us all to stay together. They began shouting, “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” It means “God is great” in Arabic. They lit the office on fire. We realized they were impostors. They were not there to help us.” But it was too late to run, we were forced into trucks at gunpoint.

I had a plan, i asked the men if I could go to the bathroom — in the bush. I decided I would rather die trying to escape than be killed by these men.” She stuck to her plan, running for her life. As she crashed through the dense, thorny forest, she had no idea where she was going. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see other girls fleeing as well — shooting off in all directions.

In her narration, Mercy said she jumped off a speeding truck as the terrorists drove the girls to the camp, taking the chance that she might break her legs when she slammed to the ground. She found her way back to Chibok, hiding in the bush along the way. I pray to God to forgive them and cure their hearts,” she says in her native language. “I do not want revenge.”

The third girl, Sarah said she was staying with a friend nearby to help with a wedding, she woke in the night to the sound of men shouting as they torched the school. The next morning, she went to the charred grounds. “No one is there,” she says. “They are all gone.” Among the missing was her cousin Mercy — the same Mercy here in Canyonville.

Sarah and her relatives feared they would never see her again. “Everyone is asking ‘Where is Mercy? Where is Mercy?’ My grandmother, cry, cry, cry,” she says. She dissolves into tears. “I don’t like to talk about Boko Haram. They are bad people,” she says. “Sometimes when you sleep, you dream about them.