Chad’s Army rescues 43 Boko Haram child soldiers in Nigeria

This article was fairly short, but I found its content appealing because of my particular interest in government involvement in civilian rescue missions. The Army of Chad stepped up in Nigeria, defeated the Boko Haram in a city, and rescued the child soldiers. This children were told to hide in the homes of the citizens until it was save from the jihadists, but eventually the Chadian soldiers freed them to return home. This article raises two questions for me: Why is it that another country’s government needs to bail out Nigeria, does this mean they are still struggling to help their citizens from being attacked? Secondly, it’s amazing that these children are saved, but what will their lives be like now?

I have been following Nigerian Government’s involvement in their citizen’s affairs surrounding conflict for a few months now, and I referenced it specifically with I G Wala in his rescue of 500 girls. After the government denied that he had saved those girls, I assumed they would make more of an effort to protect their people. Months later, the Chadian government has made an advancement in the matter, saving the child soldiers, but where is the Nigerian government?

Secondly, what will the lives of these children be like? Obviously it was the correct action to save these children from becoming war tools, but will the Chadian government continue to help them, or leave them to find their families and move on? I think the follow-up step to the recovery of these children is just as vital as the process of saving them. Many of these children will have killed people, seen horrifying things, and learned extremist ways that they can’t just forget about. And would that be the Chadian army’s responsibility? Nigerian people need to be represented by their government, therefore the real question is if the Nigerian government will even involve itself in these civilian affairs. I understand international involvement in the extremist conflict is necessary, but from what I have seen over the past few months, the Nigerian government needs to start changing their civilian affairs before it is too late to save this generation of people.