Boko Haram Survivor’s Story Puts a Face on Islamic Terror Group

The untold victims of Boko Haram now have a face and a voice in the U.S.

Deborah Peter was 12 years old when gunmen from the Nigerian terrorist group burst into her home in northern Nigeria and shot dead her father, a Christian pastor, and her 14-year-old brother Caleb, and then forced her to lie with their corpses.

Peter, now 15 and attending a Christian school in rural Virginia, came to the U.S. Capitol today to recount her ordeal for leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She was attacked in 2011, well before Boko Haram’s abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls and young women in April finally drew international attention and condemnation.

eter is from Chibok, the same small town where the girls were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group, whose name is interpreted as “Western education is forbidden.”

“I decided to tell the world my story when the Chibok girls were taken because everyone needs to know how horrible Boko Haram is,” Peter said in a statement. “They kill innocent people who never hurt them.”

Peter sat in the front row as House committee members, led by Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, pressed officials from the State and Defense Departments to do more to aid the Nigerian government in the effort to rescue the abducted girls and young women and step up efforts to help the Nigerian military fight Boko Haram.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-05-21/boko-haram-survivor-s-story-puts-a-face-on-islamic-terror-group