Attackers suspected to be from the Islamist group Boko Haram abducted around one hundred students from a girl’s school in northeastern Nigeria.  The militants easily overpowered soldiers who had been sent to provide extra security at the girl ahead of annual exams. 

“Many girls were abducted by the rampaging gunmen who stormed the school in a convoy of vehicles,” local education official Emmanuel Sam told international journalists.  Boko Haram abducts female students to use as cooks and sex slaves.

Some of the girls were able to escape their attackers and make it to safety.  One who did said, “Three men came into our room and told us not to panic.  We later found out later that they were among the attackers” who led the young women off in a convoy.  It was only when some of the vehicles broke down that the women made a break for it.

“We ran into the bush and waited until daybreak before we went back home,” said the young woman, who did not want to be identified. 

The name Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language.  Boko Haram has spent the last few years trying to carve out an independent state in Nigeria’s northeast that would be ruled by its particularly gruesome and violent interpretation of Sharia law. 

More than 1,500 people have been killed in Boko Haram attack so far this year.  Just Monday, a bomb attributed to Boko Haram exploded in a bus terminal outside the capital Abuja killed 75 people and injured more than 140.