Ceremonies are to be
staged around the world to mark one year since more than 200 girls were
abducted by Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
A procession will be held in the capital, Abuja, with 219
girls taking part to represent each missing girl.
The abduction of the girls in Chibok in north-eastern
Nigeria sparked global outrage, with nations such as the US and China promising
to help find them.
There have been reported sightings of the girls, but none
has been found.
Boko Haram say the girls have converted to Islam and been
married off. One witness told the BBC that she saw more than 50 of them alive
three weeks ago in the north-eastern town of Gwoza.
It has been a whole year of agony for the relatives of the
missing 219 Chibok girls. There have been a few sightings of some of the
abducted students but very little official information from a government that
has long promised to rescue them from the clutches of Boko Haram.
One mother told the BBC she sometimes arranges her
19-year-old daughter's clothes in the hope that she is about to return home.
The scale of this conflict is so grim that the Chibok girls
represent just a fraction of those seized by the jihadists. Many have escaped
partly thanks to a recent military offensive - but not the Chibok girls.
High-profile figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala
Yousafzai and US First Lady Michelle Obama were among those who drew attention
to their plight on Twitter last year under the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag.
Since then, campaigners have criticised the Nigerian
government of outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan for not doing enough to find
the girls and combat the six-year Boko Haram insurgency in the north, in which
thousands of people have been killed.
Mr Jonathan suggested to the BBC's Newsday that political
rivalries had hampered the federal government's ability to grasp the scale of
the Chibok attack and respond to it, as the government of Borno state, a Boko
Haram stronghold, was run by an opposition party.
"There is more politics involved than concern for the
girls," he said.
And Amnesty International say the militants have abducted
2,000 girls and women since the start of last year, becoming cooks, sex slaves
and fighters.
Nigeria's incoming president, Muhammadu Buhari, has promised
to "crush" the insurgents and said his government would "do
everything in its power to bring them home".
However, he added: "As much as I wish to, I cannot
promise that we can find them."
mmmmmmm we are still waiting for the result to come.
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