Yesterday marked one year since Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from their school in Nigeria. The girls were taken in the night and their whereabouts remain unknown. The girls were aged between 12 and 17 and they were snatched from their dormitories and loaded onto trucks. Some managed to escape but most just disappeared and their families are left to imagine their fate. (Boko Haram means “western education is forbidden”)
In a report marking this tragic anniversary UNICEF says the number of children running for their lives in the country of Nigeria or crossing into the neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon has doubled in just under 12 months. Fighting between Boko Haram, military forces and civilian self-defence groups in north-eastern Nigeria has forced 800,000 children from their homes over the past year. 800,000 that is more than the population of Winnipeg. 800,000.
There is much that can be said about the politics of the situation. There is much that can be said about terrorism. But I want to linger with the grief of the parents. As I write I think about the girls I know between the ages of 12 and 17; girls in this congregation, (some are sitting in the next room chatting together about their school day), girls in my family, girls who are daughters and granddaughters of friends. I think about the grief their parents would bear if their daughters were taken in the night. I think about the deep sense of loss and pain that these Nigerian parents are enduring, not only because their daughters are gone, but also because they do not know what has happened to them. They do not know if they are dead or alive, if they have been raped or married off or sold into prostitution or turned into soldiers. It is one thing to have a child die and then stand at their grave. It is another thing to have them disappear. This makes me think of the over 1000 Aboriginal women in our own country who have disappeared and the grief and anguish of their families who don’t even know what happened to them. What is wrong with the human race that it would kill its own kind with such disregard? It is shameful.
Today I am praying for the families of the disappeared who grieve and long for answers. Will you pray for them too? Please?
