Boko Haram lined up the girls’ sandals as a deliberate taunt

Evidence

When the men were gathering the girls to take them away, they had demanded each girl give them her spare shoes. As they left, the men lined up the sandals in front of the rubble. When the administrators and parents saw the shoes, they stared at them in disbelief. The girls had truly vanished, as if the Holy Spirit had come and taken them himself. — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 396

Categorization

• SEED: The sandal ritual — demanding shoes then arranging them before the rubble — is an unnerving detail that could anchor a longer piece on how militants stage theatrical humiliation, echoed in other abductions.
• FICTION: The image of shoes lined before ruined school buildings functions as a haunting, object-level symbol of absence — a strong scene anchor for narrative nonfiction or fiction.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alexis Okeowo, A Moonless, Starless Sky, 396