It’s been 500 days this week, since the radical Islamic group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a secondary school in the predominantly Christian village of Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria.
Since then, little has been heard of their fate: some are presumed to have been forced into marriages, or used as suicide bombers, and only a handful have managed to escape.
#BringBackOurGirls has launched a week of action, which includes notably prayers, meetings with the Chief of Defence Staff, and a candlelight procession in Abuja, the capital.
According to Rev Samuel Dali, the President of the Ekklisiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, Church of the Brethren in Nigeria), 176 of the kidnapped girls are from his denomination.
Speaking to local media, Rev Dali also said that over 8,000 members of his church had lost their lives and 70 per cent of church facilities in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States had been destroyed. Some 90,000 EYN church members are reported to have been displaced by the insurgency.
Source: The Guardian