NIGERIA-VIOLENCE/GIRLS-500 DAYS Campaigners in Abuja mark 500 days since Chibok girls kidnapping
Record ID:
142296
NIGERIA-VIOLENCE/GIRLS-500 DAYS Campaigners in Abuja mark 500 days since Chibok girls kidnapping
- Title: NIGERIA-VIOLENCE/GIRLS-500 DAYS Campaigners in Abuja mark 500 days since Chibok girls kidnapping
- Date: 27th August 2015
- Summary: ABUJA, NIGERIA (AUGUST 27, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF YOUNG CHIBOK AMBASSADORS MARCHING AND SINGING WITH BANNER SHOWING FACES OF ABDUCTED GIRLS VARIOUS OF BRING BACK OUR GIRLS GROUP MARCHING AND SINGING SOLIDARITY SONGS ON STREET (SOUNDBITE) (English) MOTHER OF ABDUCTED CHIBOK GIRL, ESTHER YAKUBU, SAYING: "For 500 days they have been searching for the Chibok girls but they cannot get one, just one, just one. They cannot get just one of them and they cannot get the necessary information where these girls are. Now we don't even know whether they are alive or dead. With faith, with hope I know that she is alive but they are not doing anything for us at all." VARIOUS OF BRING BACK OUR GIRLS GROUP MEMBERS TYING RED RIBBONS TO TREES VARIOUS OF BRING BACK OUR GIRLS GROUP MEMBERS MATCHING AND SINGING SOLIDARITY SONGS (SOUNDBITE) (English) FATHER OF ABDUCTED GIRL, ENOCH MARK, SAYING: "Five hundred days is not five days, it's very painful. Our daughters, in their mother land, they are now in slavery, it is very painful. We only pray that Buhari will try his possible best to rescue our daughters." VARIOUS OF ARCH BISHOP OF ABUJA, CARDINAL JOHN ONAIYEKAN STANDING AND ADDRESSING GROUP MEMBERS VARIOUS OF CHIEF IMAM OF ABUJA MOSQUE, SHEIK NURA KHALID STANDING AND ADDRESSING GROUP MEMBERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) LEADER OF STRATEGIC GROUP, BRING BACK OUR GIRLS, AISHA YESUFU, SAYING: "The captivity of the Chibok girls, one thing that it has done to us is the fact that it has made our children to be so afraid. They have this fear that they too can go to school and be taken away and nothing will be done for 500 days just the way that Chibok girls have been taken away." VARIOUS OF BRING BACK OUR GIRLS GROUP MEMBERS STANDING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND CHANTING
- Embargoed: 11th September 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Nigeria
- Country: Nigeria
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA7LMGUWYYVVXXG580QJ2N6ZZVG
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Members of the Nigerian campaign group, Bring Back Our Girls, took to the streets of Abuja on Thursday (August 27) to mark 500 days since Boko Haram kidnapped over 200 schoolgirls in the north-eastern town of Chibok.
The Islamist militant grouped kidnapped the girls and women from a school in Chibok over a year ago.
More than 50 eventually escaped, but at least 200 remain in captivity, along with other scores of other girls who had been kidnapped previously.
Parents of some of the girls that are still missing joined the march, including Esther Yakubu who expressed dissatisfaction with the official response to the kidnapping:
"They cannot get just one of them and they cannot get the necessary information where these girls are. Now we don't even know whether they are alive or dead. With faith, with hope I know that she is alive but they are not doing anything for us at all," she said.
Another parent of one of the missing girls, Enoch Mark described the grief he felt:
"Five hundred days is not five days, it's very painful. Our daughters, in their mother land, they are now in slavery, it is very painful. We only pray that Buhari will try his possible best to rescue our daughters," he said.
Aisha Yakubu, the strategic leader of the group told Reuters how the kidnapping has affected children in Nigeria:
"The captivity of the Chibok girls, one thing that it has done to us is the fact that it has made our children to be so afraid. They have this fear that they too can go to school and be taken away and nothing will be done for 500 days just the way Chibok girls have been taken away," she said.
The Bring Back our Girls group is also expected to hold a candle light procession later today.
The militants' actions in Chibok caused an international outcry, with figures such as Michelle Obama calling for the release of the girls.
The "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign group is calling for the Nigerian government to take the necessary steps to ensure the Chibok girls are rescued, according to its media co-ordinator, Bukky Shonibare.
In May last year, Boko Haram militants offered a prisoner swap to release the girls, but the proposal was rejected by the government.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been criticised at home and abroad for his slow response to the kidnapping and for his inability to quell the violence by the Islamist militants, seen as the biggest security threat to Africa's biggest economy.
Several rounds of negotiations with Boko Haram have been attempted in recent years but they have never achieved a peace deal, partly because the group has several different factions.
Boko Haram whose name roughly translates as "Western education is sinful", has killed thousands and displaced some 1.5 million people during a six year campaign to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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