Nigerian missing schoolgirls: Malala tells Boko Haram to "learn Islam"

Abuja, May 9: Pakistani teen rights activist

has showed her concerns towards missing Nigerian schoolgirls and told

to go and learn

.

In an interview to CNN, Malala said, "Girls in Nigeria are my sisters."

Boko Haram, the dreaded Islamist militant group, has kidnapped nearly 300 girls in Nigeria, more than three weeks ago in the Borno state.

While saying the Boko Haram does not understand Islam, Malala said, "I think they haven't studied Islam yet, they haven't studied Quran yet, and they should go and they should learn Islam."

"I think that they should think of these girls as their own sisters. How can one imprison his own sisters and treat them in such a bad way?", she further said.

"They are actually misusing the name of Islam because they have forgotten that the word islam means 'peace,'" Malala said.

She added: "When I heard about the girls in Nigeria being abducted I felt very sad and I thought that my sisters are in prison and I thought that I should speak up for them."

In an another interview to BBC, Malala said, "if we remain silent then this will spread, this will happen more and more and more."

"The international community has to do more to help the girls kidnapped over three weeks ago by Islamist Boko Haram militants in Nigeria. When such things happen we cannot keep quiet," she said.

Malala, who is a girls' education campaigner, was the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

She survived an assassination attempt by Taliban, who shot her in the head, at her native Swat in northwest Pakistan in 2012 after she spoke publicly about girls' rights to education.

Meanwhile, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said during the Worl Economic Forum, "I believe that the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of end to terror in Nigeria."

"The government cannot negotiate with faceless people," said Jonathan, while reassuring parents, guardians and all Nigerians that government would rescue all the abducted girls", he said.

In a video clip released on Monday, militant group Boko Haram said its members were behind the mid-April kidnapping of school girls in Chibok Town, an incident which sparked outrage locally and internationally.

The girls were kidnapped from the dormitory of Government Secondary School, Chibok, on the night of April 14.

OneIndia News