HUMANITARIAN : Billionaire To Sponsor Education Of 21 Girls Freed From Boko Haram.... Robert Smith has also promised to help girls who may be set free in the future.

01/04/2017 02:35 pm ET

The Nigerian government negotiated with the terrorist group
 to release 21 Chibok girls in October 2016. Reuters Photo

Nearly two dozen Chibok, Nigeria schoolgirls who were released from Boko Haram’s captivity will have the opportunity to get an education courtesy of black American billionaire Robert Smith.

Smith, who founded a private equity firm, is offering scholarships to 24 Nigerian girls, 21 of which were abducted by the terrorist group two years ago.

Billionaire Robert Smith will sponsor the education
 of 21 girls who were freed from Boko Haram’s captivity. Getty
Images

According to Nigerian publication Leadership, senior assistant to the president on media and publicity Mallam Garba Shehu said that the girls, who are being treated as adopted children of the federal government, will be admitted through negotiation at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, a top school in the country. Shehu added that Smith “is offering to take responsibility for all the others who will hopefully be eventually set free.” In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped as many as 276 girls from Chibok and forced them to either join their army or become their slaves. They were subjected to rape, torture, starvation and forced marriages, according to the New York Times. Since 2014, the group has abducted about 2,000 girls and boys. The Nigerian government negotiated the freedom of the 21 girls in October. 

Smith, who is known as the “quiet billionaire,” started his fight to help these girls in 2015 when he learned of the bleak fate of 50 victims who had escaped. more