The Washington Post reports: Two years ago Thursday, just before midnight on a sweltering night in a town in northeastern Nigeria, men carrying AK-47s stormed into the Chibok Government Secondary School.

What happened next would bring global attention to the Islamist group Boko Haram, which had been haunting Nigeria for years. It would unite activists around the world, including first lady Michelle Obama, around the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. It would prompt the United States to dispatch surveillance drones and military trainers to West Africa.

The militants kidnapped 276 schoolgirls. Several dozen of them were able to escape. But two years later, even as the Nigerian, Cameroonian and Chadian militaries have pushed Boko Haram out of many of its former strongholds, 219 of the girls remain missing.

On Wednesday, CNN released an apparent proof of life video of fifteen of the girls, reportedly filmed last December. They wore flowing headscarves and stated their names. “We are all well,” one of them said.

It was a rare window into their condition, but it raised as many questions it answered. The video alluded to a possible negotiation with the Nigerian government, but those details remain unclear. And many Nigerians wondered why it took so long for even the parents of the girls to see a video confirming they were still alive. [Continue reading…]