06/27/2014, 00.00
PHILIPPINES - NIGERIA

Send to a friend

Manila, Filipino Students: Free Nigerian Girls Kidnapped by Boko Haram

At least 4 thousand girls, from elementary to high school, demonstrated in the streets of the capital. Brandishing placards and chanting slogans, they demanded the release of more than 200 kidnapped girls by Nigerian Islamist group. And they raised the right to education for women, distributing leaflets to commuters.


Manila (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Thousands of Filipino students from a Roman Catholic-run school for girl joined Friday a global campaign to free more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists in Nigeria, chanting "bring them back" and urging motorists in the Philippine capital to honk their car horns in solidarity.

About 4,000 grade school to college students and nuns of St. Scholastica's College spilled out of their campus to line up a busy street in Manila, many of them carrying placards that read "Bring Back Our Girls" and thumping their fists in the air as they chanted. 

They gave commuters a statement calling for the release of the girls and affirming their belief that girls deserve to be educated.

Extremists from Boko Haram - which means "Western education is sinful" - first abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria in April. Witnesses said they took 91 more people, including toddlers as young as 3, in attacks on villages in that African country earlier this month, providing fresh evidence of the military's failure to curb an Islamic uprising and the government's inability to provide security.

Over the past two years, Boko Haram (which means 'Western education is sinful') has carried out a series of terrorist attacks against churches, schools and places where Christians and Muslims meet, killing more than 1,500 people. The most recent victims included 60 girls and women, some of whom were married, and 31 boys, witnesses said.

Celine Saplala, a nun and official of the school, said the rally was meant to appeal to the abductors and to people all over the world to free the girls and respect "their right just like anybody else to pursue their dream for an education." "Please bring back our girls," said senior college student Roelle Charmaine Bito. "We have the right to be educated, each and every one of us."

 

 

TAGs
Send to a friend
Printable version
CLOSE X
See also
Dozens killed and churches burned in latest Boko Haram attack
30/06/2014
Boko Haram wants to spark a war between Christians and Muslims, Jos bishop says
11/06/2012
Growing unemployment in the Philippines, also due to corruption and waste
04/01/2010
Pope receives Asia Bibi’s husband and daughter
24/02/2018 13:35
Boko Haram militants slaughter 150 people, including Muslims
03/07/2015


Newsletter

Subscribe to Asia News updates or change your preferences

Subscribe now
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”