Tuesday 21 October 2014

Bring back our girls


Abuja, Nigeria - Six months after the armed group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 Nigerian girls from a boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok, 219 remain in captivity after 57 escaped.
That may come as a surprise to many because the April 14 mass abduction that drew global shock, condemnation, and media attention has since been largely forgotten - except in Chibok that is.
Every day at Unity Fountain in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, family members of the girls, community members, and citizens in solidarity gather to chant the message that was heard around the world last April: "Bring back our girls."
None of the young women so far have been rescued, despite a global #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign that went viral and garnered support from such high-profile figures as the US president's wife, Michelle Obama and Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
World leaders from countries including the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, Canada and Israel offered assistance to Nigeria to free the schoolgirls, but to date no diplomatic or military action has secured their release. As far as our girls are concerned, they have been abandoned," said Mkeki Mutah, an uncle of two of the missing - 17-year-old Saratu and 18-year-old Elizabeth.
"There is a saying: 'Actions speak louder than words.' Leaders from around the world came out and said they would assist to bring the girls back, but now we hear nothing. The question I wish to raise is: why?" Mutah told Al Jazeera.
"If they knew they would not do anything, they wouldn't have even made that promise at all. By just coming out to tell the world, I see that as a political game, which it shouldn't be so far as the girls are concerned."

Does it mean its time to move on?

Thousands of people have been killed in Boko Haram attacks since the group was esteblished in 2002 in its fight to create an Islamic State in northeast Nigeria.
On April 14 - in one of its most brazen assaults to date - Boko Haram fighters stormed a high school in Chibok after dark as hundreds of young women wrote exams. The students were then loaded onto trucks and driven off. Fifty-seven managed to escape as they were being hauled away or soon after.
Boko Haram has demanded a swap for detained fighters in exchange for the girls, but so far President Goodluck Jonathan has refused.
Outrage over the abductions soon spread and the world's media began marking the number of days since the schoolgirls disappeared. But six months later, world leaders and the Western media have since shifted their attention to the international fight against the group calling itself the Islamic State (ISIL) in Syria and Iraq and the Ebola threat.

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