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Upset Chibok Girls' relatives and activists say government needs to be more proactive

Nigeria

Relatives of the missing Chibok girls are expressing their anger and anguish at the Nigerian government over the continued detention of their girls.

This follows the release of yet another video on Sunday, by Islamist militants Boko Haram, who abducted the girls two years ago.

“Honestly I think they are too upset to be angry, they’re just overwhelmed and they feel helpless and that was what I kept hearing last night: ‘what can you do for us? What are we going to do? How can you help us?’ That’s their cry, you know, and there’s a lot of crying going on. It’s like, you know, it’s like ‘please help us, help us find our daughters,” said Chief Executive of the Murtala Mohammed Foundation, Aisha Oyebode.

The Bring Back Our Girls campaign group has also condemned what it describes as the government’s inaction towards rescuing the girls and are demanding for more action.

“Government needs to be a lot more strategic in terms of how they go about now finding the girls. This has been going on for over two years, we’ve tried so many different approaches, maybe it’s time to start thinking about a different approach,” she also said.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has on several occasions promised to rescue the girls, with the country’s information minister recently insisting the government was doing everything possible to secure the girls’ release.

Boko Haram has however vowed not to return the girls if the government does not release its fighters who have been “in detention for ages”.

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