The haunting faces and names of Nigerian schoolgirl hostages the world has forgotten

 

Kidnapped by Islamist militants two months ago... 
By Gordon Brown UNITED NATIONS SPECIAL ENVOY FOR GLOBAL EDUCATION

These are the names and faces of some of the more than 200 Nigerian girls who were abducted from their school dormitories eight weeks ago. Each girl has a story, a future they had planned, a family anxiously waiting for them at home.
 

I was shown these pictures after visiting Nigeria this week. I met the leader of the community council in Chibok, the town from which the girls were abducted.

Slowly and with tears in his eyes, he flicked through a file in which he had recorded the names and photographs of the girls.



The community leader and the girls’ families have given permission for their names and photographs to be put into the public domain so the world is reminded of the missing girls. He is being helped to publicise this by Arise TV chief Nduka Obaigbena.

There is also a file on the 53 girls who escaped by running for their lives from their Boko Haram kidnappers. I have spoken to three who fled.

 
 

With tears in his eyes, the leader of the community council in Chibok, the town from which the girls were abducted, flicked through a file in which he'd recorded the names and photographs of the girls, writes GORDON BROWN. Not even the police and Army have managed to compile such detail he has amassed from talking to the parents of the kidnapped teenagers. The file has 185 pages - one for every girl. Each page has a photograph, and beside each passport-sized picture some stark facts - the girl's name, her school grade and the date of abduction.

For the other 19 abducted girls, he has yet to locate photographs. He will.



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