Boko Haram abductions mar Nigerian elections

As Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan touted recent military success against the Islamic terror group Boko Haram, villagers from the town of Damasak mourned the loss of hundreds of loved ones.

Villagers say Boko Haram insurgents kidnapped more than 400 women and children from the northern Nigerian town last week, nearly a year after the group abducted some 300 schoolgirls from the mostly Christian village of Chibok.

The kidnapping ignited a brief Twitter campaign last spring, as celebrities from Julia Roberts to Michelle Obama posed for somber photos with placards reading #bringbackourgirls.

A year later, the Chibok girls remain in Boko Haram captivity.

Last week’s abductions in Damasak grabbed far less attention as Saturday’s presidential elections in Nigeria drew near. Millions of Nigerians waited hours over the weekend to vote in one of the closest presidential elections in the country’s history. Officials say they expect to begin reporting results on Tuesday.

Boko Haram militants killed at least 40 Nigerians at polling places over the weekend, but officials noted millions more cast ballots without facing violence.

Security issues were a prominent election issue for Nigerians wearied and bloodied by a Boko Haram insurgency that has killed at least 20,000 people over the last six years. Jonathan faced stiff criticism for his failure to stem—and sometimes to acknowledge—the violent insurgency. (After the Chibok kidnappings, Jonathan didn’t publicly mention the abductions for weeks.)

Nigerian officials delayed the presidential contests from their original Feb. 14 date, suddenly saying the military needed six weeks to wipe out Boko Haram. Many suspected political motivations in the sudden move to confront the terror group after doing little to curb their horror before that.

Over the past month, a multinational force with troops from Niger, Chad, and Cameroon have helped Nigerian soldiers expel Boko Haram militants from many towns and villages in northern Nigeria. Jonathan all but declared the brutal terrorist organization’s end.

Meanwhile, villagers in Damasak wondered if the military would pursue the hundreds of women and children Boko Haram took as they fled troops’ advances last week.

Nigerian officials denied Boko Haram carried out a mass abduction in Damasak, but local residents told a different story. Souleymane Ali, a local trader, told Reuters the insurgents kidnapped his wife and three daughters, telling him: They are slaves, so we’re taking them with us because they belong to us.

A 40-year-old woman said the extremists corralled the captives in the mostly Muslim city’s main mosque before leaving town. She saved her two children by hiding them, but residents said the militants took hundreds more.

The terrorists didn’t take all their victims alive: As troops from Niger and Chad entered the city, they found the decomposing bodies of 70 residents under a bridge.

The captives from Damasak and Chibok join scores of other victims kidnapped by Boko Haram in recent years, and many share a similar fate: The extremists force the women and girls into sexual slavery and marriage and force the boys into their ranks to fight the group’s perverse war.

Despite military advances against Boko Haram, it doesn’t appear the group’s war is ending. An NBC News analysis showed that while Boko Haram has lost territory in recent weeks, it also has adapted tactics.

The group hasn’t attempted another village-wide massacre like its brutal attack on Baga in January, but it has increased its use of suicide attacks: Boko Haram conducted 10 suicide bombings in the six weeks before the Nigerian military offensive began. In the six weeks after the offensive started, the group carried out 12 more, sometimes using young girls as the bombers. Some of the bombings killed dozens of victims.

Bukky Shonibare, a Nigerian advocate for the missing Chibok girls and other vulnerable women in Nigeria, told a gathering in Washington, D.C., last week the suicide attacks create agony for Chibok parents: They always wonder if the forced suicide bomber is their daughter.

Shonibare said despite the initial rush of attention on the Chibok girls last year, the Nigerian government must do more to save the girls and other captives, particularly when they receive reports about where the girls are being held.

Even if the militants have lost territory, they’ve kept captive scores of people who once called those lands home. Shonibare urged U.S. officials to continue pressing for action for the missing and the displaced.

“This is not about carrying a placard,” she said. “This is about making sure something gets done.”