Of the 110 Nigerian girls kidnapped 19 Feb. by militants suspected to be affiliated with the violent Islamist group Boko Haram, 101 were unexpectedly released 21 March. Of the remaining nine, five are reported to have died during their captivity.
And the other four? One of them is a Christian girl who has refused to “convert” to Islam, her father is reported by the BBC as saying. The BBC did not say what has become of the final three girls.
“The father of one girl said she was being kept by the militants – thought to be from the Boko Haram group – because she refused to convert from Christianity to Islam,” according to the BBC report. “In a radio interview he said he was happy that she had not renounced her faith.”
The girls were abducted from their school in the town of Dapchi, Yobe state, in northeast Nigeria.