Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping: what Wikipedia removed
In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. The 2015 opening identified Boko Haram as “an Islamic Jihadist and terrorist organization based in northeast Nigeria.” The opening today calls it only “the Islamist militant group Boko Haram,” though the word survives 3 times in the body. A reader today learns Boko Haram is Islamist and militant but not that it was described as a jihadist and terrorist organization.
The word “jihad” appeared 1 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2015. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 3. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| jihad | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| terror | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| militant | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| islamist | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The description of the kidnapped students was reworded from ‘mostly Christian, with some Muslim’ to ‘female students.’
- The description of Boko Haram as ‘an Islamic Jihadist and terrorist organization,’ dropped from the opening and replaced with ‘Islamist militant group’; the word survives 3 times in the body.
- A reference to a breakthrough in negotiations with the Islamic militant group, dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2015 (revision 669070128):
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State , Nigeria. Responsibility for the kidnappings was claimed by Boko Haram , an Islamic Jihadist and terrorist organization based in northeast Nigeria. On 17 October 2014, hopes were raised that the 219 remaining girls might soon be released after the Nigerian army announced a truce between Boko Haram and government forces. The announcement coincided with the six-month anniversary of the girls’ capture and followed a month of negotiations mediated in Saudi Arabia by Chadian president, Idriss Déby . The announcement was met with doubt as this was not the …
2025 (revision 1297442378):
2014 kidnapping by Boko Haram “Bring Back Our Girls” redirects here; not to be confused with Bring Back My Girls . On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian , with some Muslim, schoolgirls aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State , Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance to take final exams in physics . After the incident, 57 schoolgirls immediately escaped by jumping from the trucks on which they were being transported, and others have been rescued by the Nigeri…
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
Wikipedia text is quoted under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is not affiliated with Wikipedia.