Stephanie Linus Daily

Tag: BringBackOurGirls

  • 21 More Reasons To Smile

    I woke up to the happy news that 21 Chibok school girls who were abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released. According to news reports, they were freed after negotiations with their captors.

    These girls are among the over 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist insurgents in April 2014. After 2years and 6months in captivity, they have finally been released to join their families! What an awesome news.

    Well done #BringBackOurGirls group for the continued advocacy, and all who have been praying for their safe return all over the world. I must also commend the brave Nigerian soldiers who have been putting their lives on the line for our safety. God bless you all.

    I can’t imagine how their families and loved ones must have felt during this trying period. It’s such a relief to hear this news. Let’s not forget the rest of the girls and others who have been held captive. I sincerely pray that God will comfort and strengthen the rest of the awaiting parents and bring all the girls back home.

  • The Inspiring Story of 3 Chibok Girls Who Escaped Boko Haram Captivity

    They look just like the average teenagers, happy and in school. But their smiles now do not reflect the harrowing and near death experience they faced over a year ago when they were kidnapped along with over a hundred girls from their school in Borno state.

    Mercy, Sarah and Dolapo are survivors from the Boko Haram Chibok kidnapping.

    By a streak of luck, a few dozen of the kidnapped girls managed to escape. Yet, more than 200 remain missing till date.

    Now, thanks to a nonprofit group in Virginia, USA, The Jubilee Campaign, and activists from Nigeria, the girls are living and schooling in Oregon, USA. Coming from a deeply poor, rural village in Borno state with no Internet access to the Canyonville Christian Academy, a cozy boarding school with students from more than a dozen countries, you can say their destinies have greatly changed.

    I read their interview on Cosmopolitan today and it warmed my heart. They are brave, yes, very brave, to risk losing their lives when they ran out of their captivity in the forest.

    Here is a touching excerpt:

    There are rough moments too. “They’re teenage girls. They miss their moms and their families,” says Roome. “They want to go home for the summer, but it’s too dangerous. They have nightmares. They are terrified that Boko Haram will burn the school down. Sometimes they want to sleep with the lights on. They say, ‘But it’s so black. It’s so black.’ I tell them, ‘They are not coming for you.’”

    They’ve been through so much, lost their loved ones, separated from their family… and now, here they are, pretty and smiling.

    So inspiring!

    Read the full interview HERE
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  • #BringBackOurGirls… Remembering the Chibok Girls One Year After

    Today marks the one year anniversary of the sad kidnap of the Chibok Girls. One whole year! One year since 276 school girls were whisked away from their school by the dreaded Boko Haram sect into the unknown.

    It is quite a grim day, a day which is made even grimmer when the fact that the girls have remained in captivity ever since, hits one in the face.

    The kidnapping of the Chibok girls struck a chord outside the northeast that five years of murderous insurgency there had not. It gave birth to the rise of the #BringBackOurGirls movement, a movement that has been taken up by thousands of people across the world. Many have raised their voices, written their grievances, crafted their stories in a bid to raise awareness and call upon the relevant authorities to push for the girls’ release.

    As we remember them today, I’d like to remind us that these girls are more than just a hashtag, more than just a movement. Let us not stay alienated from the fact that they are real, young girls who were torn apart from their families in the harshest way possible.

    I read this story on Voice Of America about the Chibok girls and it broke my heart. Here is an excerpt:

    Bare bed frames still fill what’s left of the abandoned Secondary School for Girls. Soldiers guard the entrance. No soldiers were here a year ago when Boko Haram forced their way through the gate and into the dormitories. Gunfire ripped through the night.

    “The moment the men spoke in Hausa, saying they were soldiers and that we should not be afraid, we knew it was Boko Haram,” said 19-year-old student Saratu. “They told us we should not be in school. That education, ‘boko,’ is bad, ‘haram,’ and that we should come with them.”

    The men forced some girls onto vehicles, while others had to walk. The men looted the storage rooms and set the school ablaze before they left.

    Saratu is one of 57 girls who escaped. She hurt her leg jumping from a vehicle as they approached the Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram’s prime hideout. A man from the village found her and carried her home.

    We remember these precious girls and pray for their safe return home. Let us keep praying for them.

     

  • Nigeria Unites in the Face of Crisis

    Bring Back Our Girls

    The past few weeks has been a very trying time for Nigerians, especially the families of over 200 girls kidnapped in Borno state.

    But beyond the sadness and despair we feel about the abduction of these girls, the incident has united Nigeria in an unprecedented way and proved what we can achieve through a united effort. We have all raised our voices against this injustice, sparing no means to express ourselves.

    What began as a social media campaign initiated by a few concerned individuals has erupted to a global one with people across the world lending their voice to the cause. You would have to be living in a cave not to have heard of #BringBackOurGirls.  (more…)

  • Our Voices Will Not Be Silenced

    Bring Back Our Girls

    Yesterday, we were greeted with the sad news that there was yet another bomb blast which claimed the lives of many at Nyanya, a satellite town in the outskirts of Abuja.

    This is to compound the agony we have been experiencing as a nation over the abduction of over 200 girls from a secondary school in Borno state.

    Our country has witnessed violence on an unprecedented scale, in measures that have torn deep into the fabric of national and international life. Terrorism, killings, abductions, child marriages, insecurity and injustice continues to threaten the lives of masses of human beings. (more…)