Remembering the Chibok girls…one year after

THIS week, the world remembered the 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants a year ago.

New York’s Empire State building was lit up in red and purple in honour of more than 200 girls and the edifice remained illuminated until 2:00 am on Wednesday, a nod to the number of girls who remain missing, according to AFP reports.

Candlelight vigils, rallies and prayers were held from Nigeria to New Zealand to Paris to mark one year since the girls were kidnapped, while others commemorated the missing students and demanded their safe return with #BringBackOurGirls messages.

“On Tuesday, April 14, 2015, The Empire State Building will be lit Purple and red in honor of BringBackOurGirls,” the Empire State website said.

Some 276 girls were taken from the northeastern town of Chibok by the Boko Haram extremists, 219 of which remain missing.

Amnesty International said the Chibok girls’ kidnapping was one of 38 in northeast Nigeria since the start of last year that had seen at least 2,000 women taken by the militants.

Nigeria’s president-elect Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday cautioned he could not make promises on the return of the 219 missing schoolgirls. (AFP)

Captions

. Students pose with placards as they join a march to mark the one-year anniversary of the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok by Boko Haram militants, in Abuja April 14, 2015 (AFP Photo).
. Displaced members of the Chibok community in Abuja gather to mark the one-year anniversary of the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok by Boko Haram militants, in Abuja April 14, 2015.
. People hold candles during a vigil for the girls who were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, on the anniversary of their abduction in Abuja April 14, 2015. (REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde)
. In a UNICEF tent at the Dar-es-Salam camp in Baga Sola, boys take part in a drawing workshop, reconstructing the events they witnessed when Boko Haram Islamist fighters attacked their villages (AFP Photo/Philippe Desmazes)
. The Empire State Building is lit in red and purple in New York on April 14, 2015, in honor of more than 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants one year ago (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)

. Former French first lady Valerie Trierweiler (L) attends a gathering “Bring Back Our Girls” near the Eiffel Tower in Paris April 14, 2015 to mark one year since more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, by Nigerian Islamist rebel group Boko Haram. (REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes)