Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai is celebrating her 17th birthday in Nigeria with promises to work for the release of some 219 schoolgirls who have been held by Islamic extremists for three months. “My birthday wish this year is ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ now and alive,” she said, using the social media slogan that has been picked up around the world to demand freedom for the girls kidnapped from a school in the remote northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok before dawn on April 15.
Malala, who escaped a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, met President Goodluck Jonathan later Monday.
Jonathan has not met with any of the kidnapped girls’ parents, nor with Nigerian activists who started the worldwide movement. He has drawn international condemnation for his government’s failure to quickly rescue the students. In May, Jonathan canceled a planned trip to Chibok. And soldiers and police prevented activists from marching to his presidential village in Abuja, the capital, to give him written demands the same month.
Malala met in Abuja with some parents of the kidnapped girls and some of the dozens of girls and young women who escaped the abduction. All have been begging Jonathan to negotiate with Boko Haram extremists. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau put out a new video this week in which he repeated his demands that the government release scores of detained insurgents in exchange for the girls’ freedom.
“Nigerians are saying ‘Bring Back Our Girls,’ and we are telling Jonathan to bring back our arrested warriors, our army,” he said.
