Parents in Nigeria have released a list of the young women they say are still missing nearly a week after Boko Haram militants attacked a northeastern part of the country.
The government yesterday officially put the number of missing girls at ‘one hundred and ten’ with the information minister declaring that ‘we will not rest until we’ve found the girls’.
There had been confusion over the number of those missing, with estimates ranging from about 50 to more than 100. State police, Yobe government and others had given different figures while a parent representing families of girls who disappeared on Friday told Reuters 105 were missing.
Yobe state government added to the confusion when it said on Wednesday that dozens of the girls had been rescued, only to issue a statement the next day saying the schoolgirls were mostly still unaccounted for, sparking anger among locals.
Bashir Manzo, who has been heading up the relatives’ efforts, said they only took information when a girl’s mother or father appeared in person to report a missing child. His daughter Fatima is among those still unaccounted for.
“This list did not come from the school management or any government source but collated by us from the parents of the girls,” he said.
“As far as we are concerned, the governor is still being fed with fake information about these poor girls.”
Reuters