Two Chibok schoolgirls who escaped from their Boko Haram abductors in 2014 have graduated from a high school in Washington DC.
The two girls, known by their first names, Debbie and Grace, on Thursday graduated after completing junior year (11th grade) and senior year (12th grade) at a prestigious private international school in the Washington metro area in America.
This was disclosed through a press release on Friday by Emmanuel Ogebe, a US-based human rights lawyer and the International Director of Education Must Continue Initiative, a Nigerian non-governmental organization involved in the care of the girls.
According to the release, Debbie and Grace were among 57 girls who escaped from the terrorists after the mass abduction of almost 300 of them at Government Girls State School in April 2014. .
Unlike most of their colleagues who jumped out of the trucks in which they were being herded away into captivity, the two girls arrived the terrorists camp in Sambisa forest before escaping back home in a terrifying journey that took about a week with their captors in hot pursuit.
They were the last to escape until Amina Ali also escaped last year after two years with the terrorists. The two schoolgirls were among a dozen Nigerian girls sponsored to schools abroad by the NGO with the help of Mr. Ogebe.
The NGO is run by victims of Boko Haram helping other victims to overcome the impact of the insurgency. “By this graduation, Debbie and Grace became the first escaped Chibok girls to graduate from an American high school with diplomas after completing and meeting academic standards,” Mr. Ogebe stated