Visiting The Girls Who Escaped Boko Haram

NPR

Published August 31, 2015 at 12:40 PM EDT

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Three teenagers who escaped a Boko Haram mass kidnapping in the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok last year are seen at the American University of Nigeria, in the Adamawa state capital, Yola, on May 8, 2015. Deborah (red headscarf), Blessing (green dress and headscarf) and Mary were among 57 who fled the kidnappers, after they seized 219 girls on April 14 last year. The young women -- who were using their middle names and asked their faces not be shown -- are now studying to sit their secondary school exams interrupted by the attack with a view to a degree course at the university. (Emmanuel Arewa/AFP/Getty Images)

Remember “Bring Back Our Girls”? It was the slogan, tweeted around the world, for a campaign to rescue more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram last April.

For a time, everyone paid attention. With little new information coming out, though, many people forgot that most of the girls are still missing. But 57 of the students did manage to escape early on. Twenty-one of them wound up at the American University of Nigeria on full scholarships.

Joshua Hammer, a freelance journalist and frequent contributor to Smithsonian Magazine, paid the girls a visit. He speaks with Here & Now’s Lisa Mullins.

Read Joshua Hammer’s Smithsonian piece, “Escape From Boko Haram”

Guest

Joshua Hammer, freelance journalist and frequent contributor to Smithsonian Magazine.