The mother of Dapchi schoolgirl Leah Sharibu, abducted by the Boko Haram barely two years ago, Thursday met with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in London.
Rebecca Sharibu is in London to mark the second anniversary of her daughter’s abduction by a faction of Boko Haram.
“We were honoured to share the Eucharist with Rebecca Sharibu today,” Welby said in a tweet. “A woman of profound courage and faith, Rebecca is mother of 16-year-old Christian Leah Sharibu, kidnapped by #BokoHaram two years ago.
“We pray for you, and for Leah to be released free from harm.”
Leah was kidnapped along with about 109 girls from the school in Dapchi, Yobe State in northeastern Nigeria. All the girls were freed – five died when their abductors were returning them to Dapchi – but Leah was never released because she refused to denounce Christianity.
Sharibu told a rally in Westminster, London on Wednesday that she was in “great pain” over her daughter’s abduction.
“My daughter, my only daughter, is already two years in captivity, and President Buhari promised me that she would be released but she has not been released. I need Leah back home and I need him to set Leah free, just like the other girls were set free,” Rebecca Sharibu said in Hausa.
“The students who were taken along with Leah have been brought back to their parents but we have been going through pain for two years, pains that cannot be described.
“On a daily basis, we hear Leah this, Leah that. We are in great pains. At times, when the stories come out, we feel so pained, we feel so terrible. We are constantly in pain, all we desire is to have Leah back with us.”
President Muhammadu Buhari earlier in the month said his government would do everything possible to rescue all abducted girls.
“We will not relent until every child, boy, or girl, every Nigerian adult in custody of Boko Haram, is freed,” Buhari said during a high-level breakfast dialogue on ‘‘Stop the War on Children Affected by Armed Conflicts, Dividend of Silencing the Guns’’ on the sidelines of the 33rd AU Summi
