Bring back our school: Chibok angry over lack of education two years on
Children in conflicts, Education in emergencies
Nigerian army soldiers stand outside the ruins of the Chibok school 鶹APP where the word 鶹APPgirls鶹APP has been painted out on the sign
There鶹APPs not much left of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, where in the dead of night nearly two years ago.
Even the word 鶹APPgirls鶹APP on the school sign outside has been painted over in black 鶹APP hidden from the world, just like the 219 students who are still missing.
Up the dusty track and beyond the heavy wrought-iron gates, soldiers stand guard with assault rifles, although there are few buildings and no people to protect.
Only the peeling light-green walls of the school鶹APPs main school building remain. Metal beams that supported the roof lie rusting. Rough grass pokes through shattered concrete.
The government of Nigeria鶹APPs former president Goodluck Jonathan announced shortly before last year鶹APPs election that rebuilding work had begun at the school.
Children walk down the street in Chibok on March 25
But apart from piles of breeze blocks, there鶹APPs no evidence of any construction. The sprawling site is silent apart from the sound of cicadas and gusts of hot wind through the desert scrub.
Ayuba Alamson Chibok steps through the rubble where the girls鶹APP dormitories once stood, picking up a bed frame from the scorched earth 鶹APP one of the few signs the site was once inhabited.
鶹APPIf the government wanted to do something, let them call the contractor鶹APP to put somebody on the ground,鶹APP the town elder told AFP, his voice rising in anger.
鶹APPEducation here in Chibok has really come to zero level. This is the only school we have in Chibok and it has been destroyed.鶹APP
The second anniversary of the mass kidnapping on April 14 will bring renewed attention to the remote town in southern Borno state, which was little known until two years ago but is now synonomous with the brutal conflict.
A soldier surveys the ruined Government Girls Secondary School
Parents of the abducted girls plan to gather at the school on the day itself to pray for their safe return, said Yakubu Nkeki, from a support group helping those left behind.
But 16 fathers and two mothers will not be there, he said. They have either died or are now among the estimated 20,000 killed in the nearly seven-year Islamist insurgency.
Others live with the physical and psychological effects of the disappearances. High blood pressure and stomach ulcers are common, he said.
Yet despite the global outrage online at the kidnapping and promises of action, many people in Chibok say they feel abandoned.
鶹APPNothing has been done,鶹APP said Nkeki, a primary school teacher, questioning why nearby towns recently liberated from Boko Haram have since been able to reopen schools.
Children gather on a street in the town of Chibok
The Government Girls Secondary School was the only state-run school in Chibok but it has been shut since the kidnapping. Calls for a boys school have come to nothing, he said.
鶹APPReally, Boko Haram has achieved its aim by saying they don鶹APPt want Western education,鶹APP he added.
In the town, life goes on as best it can. Upturned bicycles are repaired in the street, hawkers trade groundnuts from see-through plastic buckets and boys push wheelbarrows full of tart oranges.
The single main street, like the dirt road in to and out of the town, is unpaved. Every vehicle kicks up choking dust. Electricity cables hang to the ground from damaged poles.
In January, three suicide bombers killed 13 people in Chibok. At the mosque, worshippers, including young children, are now screened outside for explosives.
Suitcases lie among the rubble of destroyed school dormitories
Vigilantes assisting the military stand guard with single-shot, home-made muskets in a town that has been largely inaccessible because of insecurity.
鶹APPWe have hardship,鶹APP admitted Buluma Dawa, a 56-year-old bookseller. 鶹APPThere is no light, no water, no road and security-wise it鶹APPs not enough for us in Chibok.鶹APP
Dawa and others are at a loss to explain why, suggesting the state government has no interest in developing rural areas.
鶹APPWe hope that on the two years鶹APP anniversary (of the kidnapping), we pray that people will remember Chibok because鶹APP nothing is improving at all鶹APP
鶹APPWe have a lot of children living at home without doing anything鶹APP They will suffer, there is nothing else.
A generator and brick-making press sit idle at the site
鶹APPIf there is no education the poor people cannot even achieve.鶹APP
Some of the missing schoolgirls鶹APP parents can be found in Mbalala, a 10-minute drive from Chibok through an area still known for Boko Haram activity.
There鶹APPs little movement in the market place, only the sound of children playing, the bleating of goats and an imam鶹APPs sermon over the loudspeakers of the mosque.
Young girls in blue and white hijabs sit on piles of mud bricks; boys wash a goat tethered to a pole while others fetch water from a well, pouring it into plastic buckets.
Yawale Dunya is among the men sitting mostly silently on benches in the shade of cracked mud-brick houses or cross-legged playing cards.
Members of the #BringBackOurGirls movement march in January
The 41-year-old farmer has been able to do little else since his 15-year-old daughter Hawa was abducted.His fingers pick distractedly at prayer beads.
Military successes against the insurgents have kept his hopes alive of Hawa鶹APPs return and he runs through the scenario repeatedly in his head.
鶹APPWhen I see my daughter coming back to me I will feel very much joy in my heart,鶹APP he said.
鶹APPAll the small sickness and other things will disappear and I will be very happy in my life.鶹APP
© 1994-2016 Agence France-Presse
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