Washington:

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai today criticised Nigerian and other world leaders for failing to secure the release of over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram militants a year ago.

In an open letter addressed to the victims of the Boko Haram kidnappings, the 17-year-old Pakistani teenager, who survived a Taliban bullet in her head and is now based in Birmingham, criticised the global community for failing to help free the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped a year ago.

“In my opinion, Nigerian leaders and the international community have not done enough to help you,” she wrote to mark the one-year anniversary of the incident which shocked the world.

“They must do much more to help secure your release. I am among many people pressuring them to make sure you are freed,” she added, referring to the girls as “my brave sisters”.

Malala’s letter, described as “a message of solidarity love and hope”, comes as events, including marches, prayers and vigils, were being held to mark the girls’ 12 months in captivity.

The Boko Haram militants caused global outrage after abducting the girls from Nigeria’s north-eastern Chibok town.

The UN estimates that the insurgency has now displaced nearly 800,000 children.

“We cannot imagine the full extent of the horrors you have endured. But please know this: we will never forget you,” said Malala, who has campaigned vigorously on the issue.

“I look forward to the day I can hug each one of you, pray with you, and celebrate your freedom with your families,” she said.

In Nigeria, campaign group - Bring Back Our Girls - has launched a week of events encouraging people to remember the girls ahead of the first anniversary of their abduction today.

The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said the abduction of the schoolgirls from Chibok was “only one of the endless tragedies being replicated on an epic scale across Nigeria and the region”.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is forbidden’, launched a rebellion in 2009 and seeks to impose a caliphate on Nigeria - Africa’s largest and religiously mixed nation.

The group had kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Chibok, in Borno state. While, 57 had managed to escape the remainder have not been seen since an appearance in a Boko Haram video in May last year.

Malala, who has written of her own experiences at the hands of Taliban in her native Pakistan, was nearly killed by the armed group in October 2012 for campaigning for girls’ right to education.

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