AFP: Chibok girls: ‘bargaining chip’ of Boko Haram insurgency

August 16th, 2016

AFP journalist Sophie Bouillon asked Yan St-Pierre to comment on her article “Chibok girls: ‘bargaining chip’ of Boko Haram insurgency“.

The response was “unique”, said Yan St-Pierre, head of the Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin. “While other hostages held by terrorists have also caused some media interest — the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Palestine or the Iran hostage crisis in 1980, for example — it was rather localised,” he said. “But in the case of the Chibok girls, the media reaction was international.” The interest in the Chibok girls transformed them into a valuable asset for Boko Haram. “It is both a blessing, because they were protected a little, and a curse, because they have become Boko Haram’s bargaining chip,” St-Pierre said.

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