StandUpForNigeria Launches #EmptyPlate to Remember Victims of Terrorism

LAGOS, Nigeria, December 17, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

This Saturday marks 250 days since 276 girls were taken from their school in the Nigerian town of Chibok by Boko Haram terrorists. Some 219 are still missing and Boko Haram claim to have 'married them off'. For a while, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was everywhere.  However, there is a danger that the world is forgetting their plight, and those of others who have been captured, tortured and murdered by Boko Haram.

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141217/721111 )

That is why the StandUpForNigeria campaign (recently endorsed by ex-Nigerian Head of State General Gowon and Andrew Rosindell MP, a member of the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee) is calling on Nigeria's friends of all faiths throughout the world  to set an extra place at the dinner table this Christmas, with an empty plate to remember those who are missed by their families.

Yemi Moyegun, campaign spokesperson;

"We ask everyone enjoying a family Christmas to lay an empty plate at the table and share a picture with the hashtag #EmptyPlate to spread awareness not only of the Chibok girls, but of the thousands of Nigerians who are not with their families this Christmas.  

"The Chibok kidnapping is just part of a larger story. Boko Haram is an Islamist extremist group sharing the same ideology as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. The effects of its insurgency in Nigeria have been as terrible as the havoc being wrought in Iraq and Syria." 

Tens of thousands of Nigerians have been killed since 2009, and millions displaced. In 2014 things have taken a turn for the worse. At least 46 schoolboys were killed by a suicide bomber at a school assembly in Potiskum, Yobe state in November, and more than 150 people were killed in a dawn raid by Boko Haram on Damaturu, also in Yobe, on Monday 1st December. These add up to hundreds more empty places at tables across Nigeria.

The #EmptyPlate campaign also highlights the lack of help Nigeria has had from the international community in its time of need. StandUpForNigeria calls on Nigeria's friends and allies to do more to help defeat Boko Haram and bring home as many missing loved ones as possible.

StandUpForNigeria is a non-partisan youth initiative uniting Nigerians and the world against the terrorist insurgency of Boko Haram.  

For more information, visit http://www.StandUpForNigeria.com.

SOURCE StandUpForNigeria