Here are the faces and names of some of the school girls kidnapped on
April 14th in the Chibok community in Borno state by Boko Haram men.
Photos released by ThisDay Newspaper.
UN Special Envoy for Global Education, and former UK Prime Minister, who
was in Nigeria this week shares his experience. Find the article he
wrote about the Chibok girls below..
"I
was shown these pictures after visiting Nigeria this week. I met the
leader of the community council in Chibok, the town from which the girls
were abducted.
Slowly and with tears in his eyes, he
flicked through a file in which he had recorded the names and
photographs of the girls.
Not even
the police and Army have managed to compile such detail he has amassed
from talking to the parents of the kidnapped teenagers.
The
file has 185 pages — one for every girl. Each page has a photograph,
and beside each passport-sized picture some stark facts — the girl’s
name, her school grade and the date of abduction. For the other 19
abducted girls, he has yet to locate photographs. He will.
The
community leader and the girls’ families have given permission for
their names and photographs to be put into the public domain so the
world is reminded of the missing girls. He is being helped to publicize
this by Arise TV chief Nduka Obaigbena.
There is also a file on the 53 girls who escaped by running for their lives from their Boko Haram kidnappers.
I have spoken to three who fled. All
want to be doctors and work as medical helpers in their communities. But
for now, their lives are on hold.
They
are unable to finish their exams, unable to find a safe place to study
near home and are still in fear of another attack from Boko Haram. They
have lost a year of their schooling and they are traumatised by the
kidnapping of their friends.
For
a teenage girl, eight weeks in captivity could have life-time
consequences — and for their families it is torture. The idea that your
daughter should go to school one day and never return is every parent’s
nightmare. Not to know whether they have been molested, trafficked or
are even alive is a living hell.
These girls were abducted for the sole reason that their captors believe that girls have no right to an education.
Yet this civil rights struggle is being fought out, brutally and — for most of the time — shamefully unobserved.
On
one side, terrorists, murderers, rapists and cowards, hell-bent on acts
of depravity. On the other, defiant, relentless,
brave-beyond-comprehension young girl-heroes and boy-heroes desperately
fighting for a future but, sadly, in a world largely oblivious to their
plight.
In
Britain and in the United States, we do find out. We do learn about
abuse and horror from across the globe and we do react. But it’s often
too late, and then, inevitably, it’s always too little. We should not
fail young people, but it seems like we always do.
But we can’t forget. We owe them. We can’t give up because they won’t have given up.
Reviewed by Theblow360
on
4:56 AM
Rating:
No comments: