A group lobbying for government action on behalf of the parents met with U.N. Women, the head of the U.N. representation in Nigeria, and with officials of the U.N. Office for West Africa last month. The group has also appealed to UNICEF, campaign spokeswoman Bukola Shonibare said.
“If the government cannot take action, we are asking for the U.N to come in and help and if they reject, we just don’t know what to do,” Reverend Enoch Mark, leader of the parents said. Two of his daughters were among the kidnapped.
It is not clear what any U.N. agency could do without Nigerian government approval.
More than eight months since the abduction of the girls from Chibok, in Chibok, Borno state, parents say they are still in the dark about what the government is doing.
On April 14, Boko Haram militants raided the school while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks. Around 50 escaped shortly afterwards.
“The Chibok community is pained, we cannot take this anymore,” Dauda Iliya, spokesman for the Chibok community in Abuja, said at a New Year’s Day rally of parents. He added that they had written to the United Nations to “protest this neglect and nonchalance by the government.”
More girls and males have been kidnapped since the Chibok attack. Two weeks ago, gunmen abducted 172 women and children from Gumsuri, 24 km from Chibok.
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