Some 276 girls were seized from their dormitories at the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria, on the night of April 14.
Fifty-seven managed to escape and Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau later threatened to sell the remainder as slave brides, vowing they would not be released until militant prisoners were freed from jail.
In late May, Nigeria’s most senior military officer, Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh, said the girls had been located but ruled out a rescue because of the danger to the girls’ lives.
Since then, nothing has been seen or heard from the girls while back channel talks with militant leaders have stalled.
– Campaigns still running –
The girls’ initial weeks in captivity sparked a frenzy of media coverage and interest on-line, where the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls trended on Twitter and was retweeted the world over.
Nigerian Bring Back Our Girls campaigners have since held regular marches in Abuja, even as global attention shifted elsewhere and foreign missions involved in the search grew frustrated at the lack of progress.
“Globally, the movement has definitely slowed down,” acknowledged Molade Alawode, of the Washington-based non-profit organisation Act4Accountability, which spearheaded protests in the US capital to highlight the girls’ plight.
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