How would you react if all the senior girls were kidnapped overnight? That is exactly what happened on April 15th, 2014 in Nigeria. The terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped two hundred seventy six schoolgirls, scheduled to take their senior physics exam, from the Government Secondary School.

The founder of Boko Haram, Muhammad Yusuf, stated that the intent to kidnap these girls was to help create a “pure” Islamic state, according to a special report from the United States Institute of Peace. This relates directly to the organization’s name, which can be loosely translated as “Western education is sin.” Since the creation of the group in 2002, the use of violence has escalated.

In 2009, Boko Haram followers staged their first anti-state attack, an uprising against a few police stations, which erupted into over 1,000 deaths.

Because of this string of attacks, leader Yusuf was surrounded, detained, and died in custody. A new unknown leader emerged after this incident. After rising violence, such as bombings, assassinations and more riots, the government declared a state of emergency in which a curfew was enacted.

In an attempt to fight Boko Haram, the Nigerian government retaliated by setting fire to houses in a battle that left over 180 people dead, including civilians, in April of 2013.

In an article written for USA Today, author Oren Dorell revealed that, in just the beginning months of 2014, Boko Haram has been responsible for no less than 4,000 deaths. Because of the deteriorating security situation in Northern Nigeria, the Government Secondary School had been closed for one month, but 530 students registered to take their physics exam in their final year of high school.

Amnesty International declared that the Nigerian government had 4 hours warning before the Boko Haram militants raided the school. Their claims were confirmed, yet Nigerian officials reported that their forces were already spread too thin in order to prevent the kidnapping.

Initial reports said that only 85 students were kidnapped, yet in truth 276 were. On May 6th, 8 more girls were kidnapped, to up the total to 284. Members of Boko Haram allegedly forced the girls, aged 16-18, to cook, forced into Islam, forced to marry, and forced to become sex slaves. The main reason the girls were kidnapped, according to some reports, was in protest to females being educated, which according to Boko Haram, is against Islamic teaching.

Many Islamic organizations have condemned Boko Haram, as their acts of violence “clearly contradict the peaceful teachings of the Qur’an.” The Organisation of Islamic Conference has released a statement saying, “What they, [Boko Haram], do is criminal act, it has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, Islamic teachings, the religion of Islam, the history, the culture, the civilization of Islam, and we should identify them for what they are: as a terrorist group.”

The new leader, revealed to be Abubakar Shekau in 2009,stated in reference to the school girls, “Allah instructed me to sell them…I will carry out his instruction.”

On May 12th, Boko Haram released a video threatening to sell the girls into slavery if the Nigerian government did not release detained Boko Haram militants. Recently, the Nigerian government has confirmed that they’re aware of the location of the girls, but they will not use any force to retrieve them.

In fear of further harm to the schoolgirls if Boko Haram senses a threat, the Nigerian Government began to broker a deal to release detained militants from the group on May 26 of last week.

Two days earlier, Nigerian allies declared that they would not negotiate with terrorist organizations, so many countries, including the U.S, are not supporting this deal.

Many unexpected aftereffects of this situation have come to light, such as increasing the notoriety of Boko Haram, and the resulting consequence of growing support for the terrorist group.