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The Twitter trend to raise awareness of other victims of violence or terrorism apart from those in the West, including around 2,000 people recently killed in Nigeria, was started Sunday night by a US citizen.
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Let's show the world those 2000 people killed by #BokoHaram aren't forgotten just because they're in Africa. Let's get #Nigeria2000 trending
— Sean Jordan (@seanjjordan)
January 12, 2015
The Tweet follows the global condemnation of the shooting and murder of 12 people in Paris last week, ten of whom were workers for the magazine Charlie Hebdo.
However, few global leaders have publicly condemned the massacre of up to 2,000 people in Nigeria earlier this month. Baba Abba Hassan, the head of Baga, a town near Chad, said that most of the victims were children and elderly people who “could not run fast enough when the insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.”
“The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous,” Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesperson for a civilian defence group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.
On Sunday, a bomb blast killed at least 19 people at crowded market in Maiduguri, Borno state, in Nigeria.
One of Africa’s most senior religious leaders, Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, told the U.K.’s The Independent that the West was “ignoring” the threat of Boko Haram, days after the mass slaughter.
Kaigama, also president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference, highlighted the difference between the West’s reactions to the murder of 12 people in France, and slaughter in African countries.
Today one million people marched in Paris against violence and in “favor of unity.” Forty to 50 world leaders also participated in the march, including conservative French president Francois Hollande, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, British prime minister David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel.
The lack of coverage of #Nigeria2000 SCREAMS to the world, that the world cares only about white lives Hence why we SCREAM #BlackLivesMatter
— Live Revolution (@Yabsali)
January 12, 2015
#blacklivesmatter is more than just the U.S. Inasmuch as the world has stood with us, let's stand with Nigeria. #nigeria2000
— De Nichols (@de_nichols)
January 12, 2015
