US Secretary of State John Kerry has vowed that
Washington will do "everything possible" to help
Nigeria deal with the armed group Boko Haram,
following the kidnapping of scores of schoolgirls.
"Let me be clear. The kidnapping of hundreds of
children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable
crime," Kerry said in a policy speech in the
Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Saturday.
"We will do everything possible to support the
Nigerian government to return these young
women to their homes and hold the
perpetrators to justice. That is our responsibility
and the world's responsibility," Kerry said.
The US, he said, was "working to strengthen
Nigeria's institutions and its military to combat
Boko Haram's campaign of terror and violence".
The schoolgirls were abducted by gunmen from
the Chibok Government Girls' Secondary School
school in Nigeria's Borno state on Tuesday last
week.
Nigerian police on Friday said Boko Haram was
holding 223 girls of the 276 seized from the
school, revising upwards the number of
youngsters abducted.
The girls' abduction has triggered global outrage
and prompted protests in a number of Nigerian
cities, as desperate parents call on the
government to secure their release.
More than 200 people also held a rally on
Saturday in front of Washington's Lincoln
Memorial to bring attention to the girls' plight.
'No effort' to rescue girls
Nigerian mothers on Saturday vowed to hold
more protests to push for a greater rescue
effort from the authorities.
"We need to sustain the message and the
pressure on political and military authorities to
do everything in their power to ensure these
girls are freed," Nigerian protest organiser
Hadiza Bala Usman told AFP.
She said that women and mothers would on
Tuesday march to the offices of the defence
minister and chief of defence staff "to ask them
what they are doing to rescue our daughters".
"We believe there is little or no effort for now
on the part of the military and government to
rescue these abducted girls, who are languishing
in some dingy forest," she said.
Nigeria's information minister, Labaran Maku,
said on Friday that Goodluck Jonathan, the
Nigerian president, had chaired a top-level
meeting with military and security chiefs about
a possible rescue mission.
The mass kidnapping is one of the most
shocking attacks in Boko Haram's five-year
offensive, which has killed thousands across the
north and centre of the country, including
1,500 people this year alone.
Boko Haram, an armed group whose name
means "Western education is sinful", is fighting
what it calls Western influence and wants to
form an Islamic state in Africa's largest oil
producer country.
