110 schoolgirls from Nigeria were kidnaped on February 19th, 2018. Islamist militants stormed into a girls’ school in northern Nigeria and took them. The Nigerians feel like their country is going through the same thing they did back in 2014 when there was another mass abduction as well. Militants from the Islamist extremist group named Boko Haram, went into the village of Dapchi on February 19th with machine-gun mounted trucks and opened fire. When Boko Haram went towards the Government Girls Science and Technical School officials and said teachers fled by climbing fences in an attempted escape. When Boko Haram was attacking the school, students tried to flee and run to the brush and others ran home. The missing girls ranged in age from 11-19. The Nigerian air force also spent more than 200 hours trying to locate the girls as well and had no luck.
As stated before, in 2014 276 schoolgirls were kidnaped by Boko Haram as well. A few of them escaped or were released but most of them are still being held hostage and have no sign of being freed. After this had happened, people started a campaign called “Bring Back Our Girls.” This campaign was to help bring back the 200+ girls that went missing and the campaign is still significant to this day. This campaign was not useless though, it helped people get through a huge tragedy as well as spread awareness of everything that has happened. The hashtag #BringBackOurGirls spread like rapid fire around the world.
People like Michelle Obama and Pope Francis took time to recognize this tragedy as well. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to make the Nigerian government help find the schoolgirls but this problem overall has not held the attention of the international community as well as it should. The #BringBackOurGirls movement got better news a few years later when the Swiss government and International Red Cross decided to have two months full of negotiations and Boko Haram then released 21 of the Chibok girls.
The recent mass kidnapping has made the parents of the abducted Nigerian girls plan to join the Bring Back Our Girls campaign as well. The hashtag also made a huge impression on twitter with over 3.3 million tweets containing #BringBackOurGirls. Hopefully, with the impressions that it is causing on twitter and more global recognition, we will be able to bring back these beautiful girls that went missing and have their families at peace.