April 15, 2015

Chibok girls kidnapping: one year on

located:	Nigeria
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

It is now one year since the event that threw Boko Haram into focus - some 276 schoolgirls had been kidnapped from their school, ripped apart from their families.

Families waited for girls to return home, one month, three months, then six months, as violence increased in their communities and many were driven out. Now a whole year has passed.

And yet the Chibok Girls kidnapping was just the tip of the iceberg. Boko Haram had waged violence on the northern region of Nigeria for nearly 6 years. And they continue to do so - Amnesty International estimated that 2000 women and girls have been abducted since the beginning of last year.

Nigeria voted in a new government last month and one of its boggest challenges will be how it handles Boko Haram.

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari was formerly a dictator who defeated a religious sect not unlike Boko Haram in the 1980s. There is hope among the public that he will be able to do the same again.

Crowds gathered across Nigeria yesterday to mark the mournful anniversary, while Buhari could only speak cautiously.

“We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them,” he said in a statement.

“But I say to every parent, family member and friend of the children that my government will do everything in its power to bring them home.”

But really, what more could he say?