Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigeria. Show all posts

Monday, 7 July 2014

The Suffering of a Parent #BringBackOurGirls





The recent rally against Boko Haram in US focusing on the kidnapped Nigerian girls made me think of the agony the parent's of these girls must be going through and I decided to post this:
Culled from Lotenna Blog

I saw this picture and i couldnt help but share. The woman in the picture is one of the parents of the kidnapped Nigerian school girls. Martha Mark holds up a photograph of her daughter Monica who has been gone for almost two
months with more than two hundred others.
I can only imagine the pain, fear and agony that the parents of these girls are experiencing. To wake up everyday, knowing that your daughter is missing and at the mercy of radical Islamic terrorists. What more could be more agonizing? One of the parents of the girls, Mary Paul Lalai even collapsed and died of heart attack after she got the news of the girls abduction.
There have been the #BRINGBACKOURGIRLS campaign and demonstrations and social media hastag activism, political tensions, option of dialogue, international intervention but our girls are still missing. The parents of these girls do not really care about all these, all they want is that their daughters be brought back to them. The recent video released by Boko Haram showed the terrified girls saying that they have been abducted forecefully and aren’t getting enough food. It was tremendously heartbreaking to hear on of the girls say, “i never expected to suffer so much in my life.”
The hope that foreign countries like Britain, US and France brought along when they sent teams to join the search is now waning. The fear of never seing their
daughters again is choking up their parents. They desperately hope each day to see their daughters return but end each day disappointed. Some ask themselves, “what did i do wrong? was it sending my daughter to school? is that my offence?”
Another fear the parents of these kidnapped girls face is the uncertainty of whether their daughters are infact still in Nigeria or have been trafficked to other countries. Recent reports suggest that only a small group of the girls are still
in Nigeria and that majority have been trafficked to neighbouring Chad and Cameroon. Its been almost three months of anguish for the parent of these girls. We arent even getting reasonable news of their wherabouts and progress of the search. The parents are worry-weary! We join our hearts and voices with them to
demand that everything possible should be done to get these girls back. They have committed no offence, they only wanted to get an education.

Nigerians in US rally against Boko Haram

    Hundreds of Nigerians in Chicago in the U.S. on Saturday held a solidarity rally, demanding that the terror group, Boko Haram, unconditionally release the schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Borno.
Over 200 girls were abducted from their school in Chibok on April 14. The Nigerians, during the rally, also demanded greater U.S. support for the Federal Government in its war against Boko Haram.
    The rally titled #unitedagainstbokoHaram: #bringbackourgirls was also organised in Atlanta, Dallas, Greenville SC, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Windsor Canada and Belmopan Belize. Participants at the rally carried placards with inscriptions such as “Nigeria needs support to fight terrorism’’ and “Stop Boko Haram’’.
Other placards read “Obama, please help stop Boko Haram’’ and “we love the girls, bring them home’’, among others.
       I'm happy to see events like this. It might not be much but we should all contribute in our little ways to make the world a better place.
I must also express my anger that these innocent girls, after all said and done haven't been brought back to their families. I constantly imagine the agony their parents must be going through. We have also received disturbing reports of the girls been raped, trafficked and shot. It is all to horrifying! #BringBackOurGirls