Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop
The
Australian government has offered to provide its special forces to help
Nigeria to rescue the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko
Haram.
The schoolgirls were abducted by the
Islamic sect on April 14. The abduction attracted international outrage
and led to the birth of the BringBackOurGirls campaign.
Australian television website, abc.au.net, reports that the country’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Sky News that Australia had offered to lend its support but Nigeria had not responded.
Britain, France and the United States had also offered to help Nigeria.
Bishop reportedly said, “Australian
troops, the SAS, are always on standby for contingencies. We have made
an offer to the Nigerian government to provide whatever support they
need to release the girls. We’ve made a specific offer to our UK and US
allies … that we are ready to assist in whatever way we can.
“We have not had a response from the
Nigerian government. They’ve thanked us for our willingness to be
involved in trying to rescue the girls but we haven’t had any specific
acceptance of the offers that we’ve made.”
The story also quotes the leader of the
country’s Green Party, Christine Milne, as calling on the Nigerian
government to provide more details before Australia could get involved.
Milne said, “The Greens want to see the
schoolgirls in Nigeria rescued. It is shocking to think all those young
women have been dragged away and we don’t know the circumstances in
which they find themselves but I think the PM needs to inform Australia
fully as to what Australia would be getting into if we sent troops into
Africa.
“Is this just about rescuing the
schoolgirls or is this about joining a coalition to take on another
terrorist war in sub-Saharan Africa?
“Australians deserve a full explanation
of what the PM’s thinking is before we can make any comment about it but
I would be remembering that we went into Afghanistan … and look where
we ended up.”
No comments:
Post a Comment