U.S. reportedly denies visa to Chibok schoolgirl

As Nigerians mark the first anniversary of Boko Haram’s kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the village of Chibok, U.S. officials have twice denied refuge to one of the girls who escaped the mass abduction.

And despite a brief campaign last spring of solemn celebrities, from Michelle Obama to Ellen DeGeneres, dramatically holding signs that read, “Bring Back our Girls,” the rest of the Chibok schoolgirls remain missing. Amnesty International estimates Boko Haram has kidnapped some 2,000 women and girls since last year. The short-lived ire of the international community hasn’t translated into helping bring back the Chibok girls or protecting others from a similar fate.

Esther Luka still remembers the night Boko Haram militants arrived at the Nigerian schoolhouse where she was staying in the northern village of Chibok. It was April 14, 2014, and nearly 300 teenaged girls were spending the night at the school where they planned to take final exams.

When a group of men arrived late that night dressed in military garb, the girls weren’t alarmed. But when the purported soldiers started hauling off the school’s food supply, Esther told me she turned to her closest friend.

“We have to run,” she said. “This is Boko Haram.”

The realization came too late, and militants from the Islamist terror group ordered the girls into trucks and cars. Esther said the terrorists warned if one girl tried to escape, they would kill them all.

As the trucks sped through the thick forest, Esther turned to her friend again. “If we go with these men, they will force us to change our religion, and life will not be good,” she remembers saying. “We need to jump.”

A year later, Esther is thankful she jumped, but she’s still struggling to land in a life that is good.

Esther (a pseudonym to protect the girl and her family’s safety) is one of nearly a dozen Chibok schoolgirls who sought safety and schooling in the United States after escaping the Boko Haram attack. (Dozens of other escapees remain in Nigeria.)

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria have granted visas to at least 10 of the girls, who are now studying in America. But they’ve denied Esther’s visa application twice.

Esther’s current host family—a Christian couple living in central Nigeria—say they aren’t sure why U.S. officials have granted visas to the other girls, while denying Esther. Sean McIntosh, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, told me the agency can’t discuss individual visa cases due to confidentiality laws.

For Esther, the separation from her friends is difficult, and she wonders why officials have rejected her request to accept an offer to attend school in America and live with a pre-arranged host family.

For now, she lives away from Chibok because of safety concerns. Her Nigerian host family is teaching her at home until she can continue formal schooling. She’s terrified of returning to school in Nigeria: “Boko Haram said if we try to return to school, they will kill us and our family.”

Boko Haram has proven that’s not an empty threat. The terror organization’s name means “Western education is forbidden,” and the militants have attacked schools, churches, and villages across northern Nigeria, specializing in kidnapping women, children, and youth over the last six years.

When Boko Haram attacked the school in Chibok, the kidnappings drew international attention and outrage.

A year later, all remain missing.

Shortly after the kidnapping, Boko Haram released a video showing some of the 219 girls dressed in Islamic garb and reciting verses from the Quran. The militants claimed the captives—mostly Christians—had converted to Islam.

It was a painful image for Esther. She recognized her friends.

During a recent phone conversation, Esther began listing the names of friends she had seen in the video but soon stopped. “It is very sad,” she said. She still remembers the trucks rumbling away into the forest after she and one other friend jumped out. After spending a night in the forest, a local search party guided them back to their village.

The girls who escaped Boko Haram are thankful for their freedom but have found returning to a normal life complicated. Esther’s host family in Nigeria says the girls endure a strange stigma of having interacted with Boko Haram, and they carry an intense fear of being re-captured.

The Christian father assisting Esther has taken her to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja twice to apply for a visa. When officials rejected her application the first time, he hired a speech and language coach to make sure she could communicate well. When they rejected her a second time, he said he was baffled: “We are really at a loss whether she can apply again.”

The host family is committed to Esther, but they say she needs the security and freedom of an environment outside Nigeria to continue her education. They also say she easily obtained a visa to visit a European country for a short stay, but she would like to travel to America to join her friends in school.

Esther said she struggles with her plight, and wonders why her case is different: “I feel like I’ve been left behind.” But she also remains hopeful for a change, and asks others to pray for a way forward.

“Pray for God to open a door for me to continue,” she said. “Pray that I can join my friends.”