This week marked the two-year anniversary of Nigerian Islamic militant group Boko Haram slaughtering 59 schoolboys at Buni Yadi Secondary School in Yobe State. To bring more attention to the widely uncovered killings, Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (pictured) recently released a statement about the incident.
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Speaking of how Boko Haram thrust itself into international infamy in 2014, Wilson says:
On February 24, 2014, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram killed 59 boys at the Buni Yadi secondary school in Yobe state. That same year, Boko Haram killed enough people to earn the title of the “world’s deadliest terrorist group.
Wilson then explains the unsettling details of how so many Nigerian youth lost their lives on that fateful day:
They then lined up the boys and ordered them to undress so that their genital areas could be inspected. Any sign of puberty was a death sentence. For the “crime” of seeking an education so they could improve outcomes for themselves and their families, 59 innocent boys were brutally murdered.
Lying on the ground, still dressed in their school uniforms, some of the boys were slaughtered like animals with their throats slit. Others were gunned down. The boys who tried to escape were burned alive, their bodies smoldering until they were as unrecognizable as the campus buildings around them that had been similarly destroyed by fire.
That incident would be the precursor to the more than 200 schoolgirls that would be abducted two months later.
“Didn’t we warn you to forget about school?” they asked the girls, before beginning a debate about whether to kill or kidnap them.
Fifty-four of the girls managed to escape, but the tragic incident has created one of the biggest mysteries in the history of terrorism. Not one of the 219 girls who are still missing has been seen or heard from. Experts from some of the top think tanks in the United States haven’t a clue where the girls could be.
Ultimately, Wilson is asking the international community to not forget the girls of Chibok.
Congresswoman WilsonUse the hashtags #BringBackOurGirls and #JoinRepWilson in order to “tweet, tweet, tweet, because the longer this terrorist group exists, the more heinous its acts become, including burning children alive, sending young girls on suicide missions, and massacring Christians.”
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