Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government
Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok in Borno state on the
evening of April 14 last year, seizing 276 girls who were preparing for
end-of-year exams.
Fifty-seven escaped but nothing has been heard
of the 219 others 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 social media and protest campaign has announced a
youth march in the capital Abuja to mark the grim anniversary along with
an evening candle-lit vigil.
Spokeswoman Aisha Yesufu said she was hopeful that the "right
thing will be done" under the new regime of Buhari, who replaced
Goodluck Jonathan on May 29, vowing to crush Boko Haram.
"We have a
new government. Yes, we have seen the kind of things he has done, his
body language, what he has said about our girls. He has made them an
issue," she told AFP.
- Brutality -
"He has given his word
that he will do all he can to ensure the girls are rescued, not only to
their parents, but for them to go back to school and continue with their
lives.
"So we are hopeful that the right things (will) be done
but at the same time we Nigerians should understand that the rescue of
the Chibok girls is not a privilege... It's their right as enshrined in
the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria."
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.
Nigeria's
government was criticised for its initial response to the crisis and
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.
Boko
Haram, blamed for killing more than 15,000 people and forcing some 1.5
million to flee their homes in a six-year insurgency, has rampaged
across Borno since Buhari's inauguration.
- Global sex trade -
The
fresh wave of violence has dealt a setback to a four-country offensive
launched in February that had chalked up a number of victories against
the jihadists.
An 8,700-strong Multi-National Joint Task Force,
drawing in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin, is expected to go
into action soon.
In a report published in April, Amnesty quoted a
senior military officer as saying the girls were being held at
different Boko Haram camps, including in Cameroon and possibly Chad.
The
Chibok abduction was one of 38 it had documented since the beginning of
last year, with women and girls who escaped saying they were subject to
forced labour and marriage, as well as rape.
Fulan Nasrullah, a
respected Nigerian security analyst and blogger who claims specialist
knowledge of the inner workings of Boko Haram, told AFP there was "no
hope" of ever recovering most of the Chibok girls.
"Most have had
kids by now and are married to their captors. Many have been sold into
the global sex trade and are probably prostituting in Sudan, Dubai,
Cairo and other far flung places," he said.
"Some have been killed probably in attempts to escape, airstrikes on camps where they were being held, et cetera."
Source:
Yahoo News
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