World News for Students of English

12-05-2014 07:00

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Nigeria on Monday, calling on the government to intensify its search for around 200 school girls abducted by Islamic militants three weeks ago.

The crowd began its march at a popular bus stop in Lagos and later gathered outside the state government house, waving banners and chanting “bring back our girls!”

They’re angry that the government has not acted quickly enough to find the girls and return them to their families.

“What we are here to do is to let the government know that they should declare the identity of the kidnappers and release our daughters. This is not too much an assignment for Nigeria to do.”

Islamists stormed an all-girl secondary school in the village of Chibok in Borno state on the 14th of April. They packed the teenagers who had been taking exams onto trucks and disappeared into a remote area along the border with Cameroon. One protester who was at the march said that this gathering was only the start.

“Well, this is the beginning. I guess Nigerians are not used to protesting, so this is the beginning. We’ll be coming back again every Monday here. We’ll be wearing red everyday to make sure that everybody remembers the suffering that these girls are undergoing, and until the girls are back, we will continue. I think this is the first step and we will mobilise more and more people.”

Difficult words: abduct (kidnap), chant (to repeat something again and again), declare (say officially), storm (attack).

Source: www.itn.co.uk