Crowds of outraged Nigerians hit the streets in Lagos on Thursday to demand the return of more than 230 missing Nigerian school girls.
It’s been about two weeks since 234 Nigerian girls between the ages of 12-17 were abducted from their boarding school, Chibok Government Girls Secondary School, in the middle of the night.
The Associated Press reports a radical Islamist group called Boko Haram is being pegged as the organization that kidnapped the girls. They vehemently object to western culture and schooling. Supposedly the young ladies had been preparing to take a Physics test at the time of the mass kidnapping. It’s believed that the girls were taken into the Sambisa Forest, where Boko Haram has set up camps.
There’s been a lot of confusion about the matter because of misinformation coming from Nigerian authorities. At first, officials said that only 85 girls were missing. The distraught parents, however, revealed that there were actually 234 students abducted. After that, authorities claimed that all but eight of the 100 girls they estimated to be missing had escaped. Officials had to retract the statement the very next day when the school’s principal stated that at least 100 girls were still missing.
According to the Washington Post, the latest round of reports claim that the girls are being sold off to other militants as brides for $12 each. This came after the girls, who were mostly Christian, were moved into Cameroon and forced to convert to Islam.
CNN reports that as of now, Nigeria’s military has been unable to track down the missing girls, let alone bring them home. Fed up with the government’s handling of the crisis, parents of the abductees and their supporters have been rallying in streets across Nigeria to demand that the government do more to rescue the kidnapped students. Residents of Chibok have even taken it upon themselves to ride into the Sambisa Forest and sweep the area in order to find the girls.
While not everyone that it outraged about the situation can make it out for the protests in Nigeria, concerned people all over the world have been spreading the word on social media. Nigerians are hoping to raise awareness on the situation be using the hashtags #BringBackOurGirls and #BringBackOurDaughters. The message has been picked up and shared by people in different nations. Supporters can also sign a petition at Change.org as a sign of solidarity in this tragedy.
A Nigerian music producer sent CNN an iReport, stating, “If you’re not safe anywhere in the world, you should be safe in your house, in your own back yard. We mandate the federal government to bring back our daughters, and our children.”
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Parents, social media demand return of 234 missing Nigerian girls was originally published on s2smagazine.com
