Riot
police on Thursday prevented more than 500 demonstrators, who were demanding
that the government do more to find 200 girls abducted from a school in Chibok
two years ago, from marching to the presidential villa in Abuja, Nigeria.
The
demonstrators, who had intended to deliver a message to the government, held a
press conference at the entrance to the road to the presidential villa.
"A
failure of governance ... has impeded the search and rescue" for the
girls, said Aisha Yesufu from the campaign Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG), which
was launched shortly after the abduction on April 14, 2014.
About
50 of the 276 abductees - mostly aged between 16 and 18 - managed to escape.
The rest are still believed to be in the power of the radical Islamists, either
as sex slaves or in forced marriages to fighters.
The demonstrators
also urged the authorities to investigate a video allegedly proving that the
girls are alive, made public by CNN.
The
video shows 15 girls dressed in black robes, giving their names and saying they
come from the school in Chibok, which is located in the north-eastern state of
Borno.
One of
the girls says all the Chibok girls are well and appeals to the Nigerian
authorities to help reunite them with their families.
The
government is investigating the authenticity of the video, Information Minister
Lai Mohammed told CNN, adding that the girls appeared to have changed
surprisingly little in two years.
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