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It has been a year since Islamic militant group Boko Haram abducted 276 teenage girls from their school dormitories in northeastern Nigeria. Fifty-seven girls managed to escape, but hopes of finding the victims continue to drift farther away even as groups around the world come together to mourn them, and Nigeria’s new president now admits they may never be rescued.
On Tuesday, the world rose in unison to mark the first anniversary of the kidnapping with Denmark, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the European Union, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, and even a Nigerian family in the North pole, showing solidarity with the families of the abducted schoolgirls and the #BringBackOurGirls group.
Here are some moving images to mark the anniversary.
Nigerian teenager Deborah Peters, the sole survivor of a Boko Haram attack on her family in 2011, holds up a sign referring to the kidnapped Chibok secondary schoolgirls. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Former French first lady Valerie Trierweiler attends a gathering ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ near the Eiffel Tower in Paris to mark one year since more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, by Nigerian Islamist rebel group Boko Haram. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
Students from an all-girls Catholic school, St Scholastica's College, wear masks depicting kidnapped African school girls in Manila. Photograph: Erik De Castro/Reuters
A girl holds a sign during a march to mark the one-year anniversary of the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok by Boko Haram militants, in Abuja. Nigeria’s President-elect Muhammadu Buhari vowed on Tuesday to make every effort to free the schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants a year ago but admitted it was not clear whether they would ever be found. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
People hold candles during a vigil for the girls who were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, on the anniversary of their abduction in Abuja. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai told Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped a year ago by Boko Haram militants they will never be forgotten and to never lose hope. “Please know this: we will never forget you. We will always stand with you,” 17-year-old Yousafzai wrote in an open letter to the missing girls. “We will not rest until you have been reunited with your families.” Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
In New York, the EmpireState building went red and purple to mark the anniversary of the kidnapping. Photograph: @empirestatebuilding/Twitter
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