In 2014, then-CNN journalist Isha Sesay broke the story of ISIS-affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram, which kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in northern Nigeria.
Five years later, over half of these girls are still in captivity. Why aren’t we still hearing about them?
From The New York Times:
It is something of a gut punch when [Sesay] learns, two years into the Chibok girls’ ordeal, that her bosses do not remain exercised by their story. The news cycle moves on. The United States presidential election seizes the media’s attention. The hashtag that pricked our collective conscience — #BringBackOurGirls — all but melts away. Some Nigerians aren’t much interested either. They wonder aloud if the kidnapping is a “hoax,” designed to portray their country in a bad light.
Sesay’s new book, Beneath the Tamarind Tree, picks up where the news cycle may have left off several years ago. We talk with her about the Chibok girls who have been released, and her years-long reportage on the subject.
Show produced by Stacia Brown.
GUESTS
Isha Sesay, Journalist and author of Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Girls of Boko Haram; @iamishasesay
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