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It’s been so long since Leah was taken—and the world has stopped paying attention. But other kidnapping victims continue to pray for their sister in Christ … will you join them?
This February marks eight years since the kidnapping of 14-year-old Leah Sharibu from her school in northern Nigeria.
Eight years since her parents have seen their daughter.
Eight years of missed birthdays and family milestones.
Eight years of growing from a teenager into a young woman.
Sadly, many people have stopped talking about her. She was kidnapped with more than 100 other girls from the Government Girls' Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State, Nigeria. The majority of the girls were released; a handful escaped or died in captivity, but Leah refused to deny Jesus and convert to Islam and has since remained in captivity. She’s currently the only remaining captive from the attack.
At the time, the news of the kidnapping gained international attention. A robust campaign around the slogan #BringBackOurGirls had launched four years earlier when more than 250 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their school in Chibok.
Leah’s kidnapping reignited the campaign, but since 2018, there has been no concerted effort to bring any girls home. From time to time, a Chibok girl is freed, but many remain unaccounted for. There are no updates about Leah and what little information there is cannot be confirmed.
Before and after Leah's kidnapping, there have been hundreds of other Christian girls and women who faced the same fate. Some have been freed, but many have slipped into the growing abyss of forgotten statistics.
Recently, Open Doors partners invited three young women for trauma care who, like Leah, were captured by Boko Haram. But unlike Leah, have regained their freedom.
Alheri* was kidnapped when she was only 12 years old. “I was living a sweet life,” Alheri shares. “In the month of September 2014, Boko Haram invaded our place. When they came in, the whole town was filled with sounds of gunshots … they killed some people; the ones that could escape, escaped. The ones they could [take], they [took] them. They [took] some of us on motorcycles.”
From there, Boko Haram marched the women and girls into the bush. That day, little Alheri left her childhood behind. She was forcibly married to a Boko Haram fighter.
She spent six years with Boko Haram, and in that time, she experienced ongoing abuse and two miscarriages. The physical abuse she endured was worsened by the fact that she was a Christian.
“They used to beat us,” Alheri remembers. “I got beaten by different people. They even threatened us with their guns, saying we should become Muslims and receive their doctrines, or they would kill us.
“Because I was still a child, I would receive their doctrine out of fear and still come back to Christianity. I didn’t renounce my faith, but they forced us to go and read the Quran.”
Nothing helped her situation.
Eventually, the man Alheri was married off to was killed, but she remained in captivity. “While staying with them, my thought was, ‘O God, please don’t leave me with these wicked people. God, please rescue me, take me out of here, O my God above,’” she says.
Throughout her ordeal, Alheri continued to plead to God for her freedom: “If you are a living God, my Father, I am serving you with one mind. God, bring me out, I am a small girl. I do not know anything.”
Six years in captivity is six years too long. Alheri's once sweet life turned bitter. “It is because of these people that I know what the world is,” she says. “This [was] my thought until God finally rescued me from their hands.”
One day in 2021, Alheri and five other girls saw their opportunity to escape and ran away. “It was five of us that ran away, but it was four of us that got out … We were walking in the bush, then we heard a donkey’s bray,” she says. “We followed the sound and found some Fulanis [a nomadic ethnic group that lives across northern Nigeria]. We asked them the way out, and they showed us how to get to the road. We kept walking till I found myself close to town. Then I got to reach home.”
Since her return, Alheri's life has not instantly become “sweet” again. Her mom died of a heart attack. “I believe it was because I was kidnapped that she had a heart attack and died,” Alheri says.
Sadly, this is an all-too-common occurrence we see with those waiting on family who have been kidnapped. Many parents develop high blood pressure or diabetes as a result of the stress.
On top of all of this, Alheri has also had to endure insults from the community. “Some were saying ‘Boko Haram's bride, Boko Haram's wife’… There are some that are disgusted by us,” she says. “Some others have seen that our character, our behavior has not changed negatively.”
It’s a bitter pill to add to an already devastating reality.
Fortunately, her time in trauma care has helped with her healing.
Alheri is happy about the trauma care she's received. “I came and met the people working here, and they weren’t disgusted by us,” she says. “They didn’t neglect us or show us that we came from the Boko Haram camp. Instead, they welcomed us... The things we didn’t expect to get in life, we have come and received it here. The things I used to feel before, like stomachaches or my heart beating fast, I don’t feel any more. Honestly, the days I have spent here, my life has changed.”
Alheri was taken before Leah's kidnapping and only learned about Leah after Alheri escaped. But the parallels are obvious—and she and the other girls offer Leah (and others that remain in captivity) their prayers.
“The God that rescued me, should also rescue them from that bush,” Alheri says. “With the sufferings that they would face, God should take their sufferings away and return them home just as He did for us. Not Leah alone, but many Christians out there, they are going through suffering.”
Ijefada*, another girl who was taken by Boko Haram in 2024, but thankfully only spent one week in captivity, shares this prayer: “My prayer for Leah is that I am pleading with God that just as He delivered me from the hands of Boko Haram, God should also deliver her from their hands.”
As Leah enters into another year of captivity, will you pray this bold prayer with Ijefada? Ask that God will release Leah, bind up her wounds and give her hope. Pray for her, Ijefada, Alheri and all other girls and women who are kidnapped in Nigeria. Thank God for healing through trauma care—and pray that God would allow Leah to experience that same healing and the hope of Christ even this year.
*Name changed to protect identity
