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8 May 2014

#BringBackOurGirls goes red – and reaches a million tweets

The #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign has reached more than a million tweets – as people across the world wear red to show solidarity with more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

People wearing red for BringBackOurGirls campaign

The campaign has been running since the schoolgirls were abducted from a school in northeastern Nigeria more than three weeks ago – and has been boosted by high profile names including, most recently, Michelle Obama (see below).

The US First Lady’s tweet has been retweeted around 40,000 times and “favourited” 22,000 times.

The social media campaign is also calling for people to wear red to show their solidarity with the kidnapped schoolgirls.

The message was on show in the House of Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, with a number of female MPs wearing red jackets and male MPs wearing red ties (see picture, below).

MPs wear red to show solidarity with Nigerian kidnapped schoolgirls

Islamist group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings. The group’s name means “Western education is forbidden”, and it opposes the education of females.

On Thursday, Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for women’s right to education, warned that the world must not “stay silent” over the kidnappings.

She told the BBC: “If we remain silent then this will spread, this will happen more and more and more.”

Nigerian police are now offering a $300,000 dollar reward for credible information that leads to the rescue of the kidnapped schoolgirl. However on Monday Boko Haram was reported to have struck again – killing 300 people in the town of Gamborou Ngala in the northeastern Borno state.

You can see some of the responses to the #BringBackOurGirls red campaign below. Tweet your pictures to @Channel4News and we will include them in this page.

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