500 days of Chibok schoolgirl abduction
(Nigeria) Relatives of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by
Boko Haram said they would hold a youth march and candle-lit vigil on Thursday
to mark 500 days since the abductions.
Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government Secondary School
in the remote town of Chibok in Borno state on April 14 last year, seizing 276
girls who were preparing for end-of-year exams, reports AFP.
Fifty-seven escaped but nothing has been heard of the
remaining 219 since May last year, when about 100 of them appeared in a Boko
Haram video dressed in Muslim attire and reciting the Koran.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has since said they have
all converted to Islam and been "married off".
The Bring Back Our Girls campaign said Tuesday it would
stage a "Chibok Girls Ambassador March" in the capital Abuja on the
500-day anniversary of the kidnappings, followed by a candle-lit procession.
"Since 498 days that they have been missing... we
failed them and they were taken and the best thing is for us to have rescued
them that very day. And up until now, 498 days after, we still haven't done
that," campaign spokeswoman Aisha Yesufu said.
The mass abduction brought the brutality of the Islamist
insurgency unprecedented worldwide attention and prompted a viral social media
campaign demanding their release backed by personalities from US First Lady
Michelle Obama to the actress Angelina Jolie.
Western powers, including the US, have offered logistical
and military support to Nigeria's rescue effort, but there have been few signs
of progress so far.
The military has said it knows where the girls are but has
ruled out a rescue effort because of the dangers to the girls' lives.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in May, has
given his generals three months to crush the insurgency, blamed for killing
more than 15,000 people and forcing some 1.5 million to flee their homes since
2009.
"It is important that we actually begin to see visible
action that leads to information that will persuade us that the girls are
being found," Oby Ezekwesili, a former education minister and also a
spokeswoman for the campaign, said late on Monday.
"A lot of intelligence work has been said to be going
on and so we are waiting with great anxiety especially considering that a
three-month deadline has been given to the new security team to end Boko
Haram."
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