For the last year, Sudan has been plunged into chaos, ripped apart by a brutal civil war. Countless civilians killed, more than 8 million people forcibly displaced from their homes, widespread hunger. With other major conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, it has not gotten the attention many say it deserves. But 10 years ago, this month, news out of Africa was dominating global headlines. On April 14th, in the northern Nigerian village of Chibok, the notorious terror group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls.

Their crime? Going to school, trying to get an education to lift themselves and their nation. In the last month, the entire world stood up and took notice.

Question is, a decade later, was taking notice enough? My guest this week is CNN senior editor Stephanie Basari. She's based in Lagos, Nigeria. And recently, she went back to that very school to unpack the complicated legacy of Bring Back Our Girls. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Reind. Stephanie, where does this story start for So this story starts for me in April 2014.

I was living in London at the time, and like everyone else, just incredible that nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from school. And it was quite personal for me because I went to boarding school briefly in Nigeria. I was born in Nigeria, and so it really resonated with me.

And can you describe for those who don't remember what happened?

Sure. In April 2014, 276 schoolgirls in northeast Nigeria, in a town called Chibok, were kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents. On Monday night, approximately 9:30 PM, a group of armed men arrived in busses, in fans, in other vehicles, and stormed a government girls college. These insurgents burst into their school and kidnapped them all. Apparently, the armed attackers did engage in a shootout with the guards that were there to protect the school. They were against girls having an education, and they really wanted to send a powerful message to the Nigerian government because Boko Haram had been waging a campaign of terror in the country. The calls to bring back our girls are growing louder inside and outside Nigeria. Rallies were held Tuesday in the Nigerian capital Abuja, also in Washington. President Barack Obama explained how the US will help Nigeria look for the missing girls. So this kidnapping, obviously very shocking. It sparked a global movement called Bring Back Our Girls. And at the time, It was very high profile. People like Michelle Obama, global celebrities holding up this poster saying, Bring Back Our Girls. In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters. We see their hopes and their dreams, and we can only imagine the anguish their parents are feeling right now.

And it was very touching to see. It was really the first time I'd seen African-Nigerian girls being advocated for on such a global scale.

Yeah, I remember. It was one of the first big hashtags that really went viral on social media and captured a lot of attention, right?

Absolutely. And it really just came out of a movement that started in Nigeria. There was a local group who were protesting, and at one of those protests, someone shouted, Bring back our girls. And it just went viral, like you said. It just captured the imagination of the world because everybody was shocked and outraged, but they didn't really know what to do. And so it was a comforting thing to be able to to say, Well, I'm thousands of miles away, but I can join. I can learn my voice. I can send a tweet to say, bring back these girls. And for several years, we did not hear anything about them. A very good evening from the UAE. It is seven o'clock here. We are tracking new developments out of Nigeria for you this hour in the kidnapping of more than 200 school girls. But then CNN obtained a proof of life video in 2016. That was the first time we heard anything about them. Then, negotiations happened. 107 of them were released. Since that time, no more of them have been freed by government negotiations. So these girls have been escaping, trickling back. Most of them have children with the Boko Haram fighters.

They were forced to marry them. And tragically, 82 of them have never come back. So with the backdrop of 82 girls still missing, we went to Chibok. So Amina, I'm so happy to see you again after... We went to Chibok with one of the girls who was freed by the government, and we went back to the school. And she really felt it was important for her to be there, to lay the ghost to rest, the ghost of her past. How have you been? Yeah, I'm good. I'm not very well, so I'm okay. You're okay. And now your daughter is how old now? She's eight years. She's eight years old. It was a very poignant journey. She pointed out the areas where they came in. She remembers it so vividly because it's a trauma that will probably live with her for the rest of her life.

This is my daughter's Rufcatus cloth. She's 10 years. I have been keeping hoping that one day she will come.

We also met a mother whose daughter is one of those 82 girls that I've told you about.

We always wash the clothes, fold it, and then keep it.

And this mother, her name is Yana Galang. She washes her daughter's clothes often in the She's clinging, desperate, in hope that one day she will come back. She was 17 when she was taken 10 years ago. She's now 27. So do you believe in your heart that she's alive?

I believe she's alive. She's my blood, and I believe she's alive.

Yes. One day you're hoping that she will walk in.

Yes. One day she will walk in among her family, among her siblings, among her brothers, and come and walk me as a mother. And I pray that God will make that Amen.

I asked her, Do you really believe, do you believe in your heart that your daughter will come back? And she said, yes.

My appeal to the world, they just take concern about it and they know that my daughter is still in the bush.

Do you think that the government has done enough to try to bring them back?

Actually, what government has been doing is good. They do their enough. They try their best. But for us, that our daughter is still in the hand the decatheter. We need their effort.

She's keeping that hope alive, like many of the parents. Many of the parents actually died also of heartbreak. They died Shortly after the kidnappings happened, just because they could not live with the heartbreak of having their daughters stolen. So the Chibok story is one of many layers of tragedy, and it's a story that I've stayed on all those 10 years because it's just never really left me.

For someone like Yana, who, I mean, just hearing that she still thinks of her daughter as alive somewhere out there, but is there any way for her to actually know that or get any closure to this situation?

It's difficult. It's difficult. Successive governments have come and gone in that time, and it seems that it's convenient they want to move on from this story because nobody wants to admit the failures. Nobody wants to admit also that kidnapping is now rampant in Nigeria.

This stuff is still happening. It's still happening. For hundreds of Nigerian parents waiting anxiously, there was good news this weekend. 137 school children kidnapped from Kuduna earlier this month have been rescued by the Nigerian military. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of over $600,000.

But now, some people who are close to the story who I've spoken to said the global attention, ironically, that the Chibok story got, has made way for copycat kidnappings, where people think that, Well, we're going to try to get that attention and get money.

Oh, that's interesting. So all this attention on them, they think, Hey, we can drive up our prices, and this becomes more of a cold business calculation rather than some ideological one.

Absolutely. And that's exactly what we're seeing. Over the past three years, I've covered story after story of mass school kidnappings, and they're just driven by criminal enterprise. And so it's a failing of governance. It's a failing of so many systematic issues. And so Yana's story, unfortunately, is forgotten when it's in the midst of all of these other problems.

And we talked about this, how the international community, they have this big outpouring of support and attention. But then, like so many of these things, unfortunately, the world moves on. But of course, for women and girls in these communities, their struggles and their lives don't just stop once the West stops looking. So what is the state of girls education in Nigeria right now?

So the state of education, girls education, is two-pronged. So you have in the south of the country, which is very stable, education is very well-regarded and considered to be very important. But in the north, the barriers were there with poverty. Then you have beliefs of boys education being prioritized over girls. Early marriage is prevalent in the north of Nigeria. And so against that backdrop, you had people advocating for girls to be educated. And at Mothers, I talked to someone on this Chibok trip who said that mothers who were advocating for their daughters to be educated now felt such a terrible sense of guilt to say, I actually pushed my daughter into this scenario. And now many parents are just saying, You know what? Let's just get them married. Let's just get them married off. So you're having girls as young as 13, 14, 15 being married off.

They just don't think the danger is worth it to send their kid to school.

It's not worth it. So it's set back. A lot of gains have been made in educating girls. But of course, it's not just girls that are being kidnapped anymore. Boys and girls are being kidnapped. Higher education, primary, secondary. It's just a ruthless industry now where they will take children en masse and they know that it's going to create emotional outburst. It's going to create an emotional reaction because why would it not? And that gives them the leverage to negotiate for ransom.

Thank you so much, Stephanie, for staying on this. We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

Not long after Stephanie and I spoke, the Nigerian Army announced it had rescued one of the Chibok school girls, Lidia Simon, more than a decade after being abducted. More than 80 girls, though, are still missing. You can read more of Stephanie's great reporting over at cnen. Com. Com. It's part of our ongoing series on gender inequality called As Equals. We'll leave a link in our show notes. One Thing is a production of CNN audio. This episode was produced by Paulo Ortiz and me, David Reind. Our senior producer is Fez Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dizula is our technical director, and Steve Ligtai is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manessari, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lainey Steinhart, James Andres, Nicole Passereau, and Lisa Namerou. Special thanks to Eliza Anyangwe, Julie Zink, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back next week. I'll talk to you then.