Hope of finding and rescuing the 219 Nigerian schoolgirls remains bleak, one year after their kidnapping by Boko Haram militants.

Speaking on the first anniversary of the kidnapping, Nigeria's President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said he cannot promise the return of the girls.

"We do not know if the Chibok girls can be rescued. Their whereabouts remain unknown. As much as I wish to, I cannot promise that we can find them," Buhari, who has just won the general election and takes office on May 29, said in a statement.

Nigerians held prayers, street demonstrations and vigils to remember and demand the release of the students, who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria's northeastern town of Chibok.

Some 57 girls managed to escape when the girls were kidnapped and taken away by the militants to their hideouts. Since then, little has been known about the whereabouts of the 219 missing girls, though reports suggest they may have been split up and taken to regional countries.

With a red tape on their mouth, volunteers gathered in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, in a rally to show the tragic situation of Chibok girls that they cannot speak.

"We cannot act like they don't exist, we must help them," read a banner held up by two protesters.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in its Missing Childhoods report that at least 800,000 children have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict in northeast Nigeria.

"The abduction of more than 200 girls in Chibok is only one of endless tragedies being replicated on an epic scale across Nigeria and the region," says Manuel Fontaine, the UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa.

Buhari said his new government will be "honest" in efforts to find and bring the girls home.

"This new approach must also begin with honesty," he said in the statement. "But I say to every parent, family member and friend of the children that my government will do everything in its power to bring them home."

In an open letter to the girls, Pakistani activist and Nobel prize winner Yousafzai Malala offered a message of "solidarity, love and hope."

She said the world will never forget them and they must never lose hope.

A survivor of an attack by the Taliban, Malala, 17, called on the Nigerian authorities and the international community to do more to bring the girls home.

"We will not rest until you have been reunited with your families," she said. "Remember that one day your tragic ordeal will end, you will be reunited with your families and friends." Endi

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