Boko Haram shows ‘Chibok girls’ in new video

Boko Haram shows ‘Chibok girls’ in new video

Sunday, August 14, 2016 2:10 pm


Grab from the new video by Boko Haram shows the fighter and the girls surrounding him. Credit-Al-jazera

Grab from the new video by Boko Haram shows the fighter and the girls surrounding him. Credit-Al-jazera

 

The Boko Haram insurgent group on Sunday released a new video showing some girls the insurgent group claimed were some of the schoolgirls it kidnapped from their school in the dead of the night in Chibok,  Borno State, Northeastern Nigeria  about two years ago.

 

In the video, which AP said was posted on twitter by Ahmed Salkida, a Nigerian journalist with access to the militant group,  a girl purportedly one of the 276 kidnapped from Chibok on 14 April, 2014 was seen  pleading with the Nigerian government to release members of the insurgent group in detention so that the Islamists can in turn free them.

 

The girl also said some of her mates kidnapped along with her had died in aerial bombardments by the Nigerian military.

 

She also said that 40 have been “married” to Islamic extremist fighters.

 

“Oh you, my people and our parents, you just have to please come to our rescue: We are suffering here, the aircraft has come to bombard us and killed many of us.

 

“Some are wounded. Every day we are in pains and suffering, so are our babies. Some of our husbands that we married also are injured, some dead. No one cares for us.

 

“Please go and beg the government of Nigeria to release the members of our abductors so that they too can free us to let us come home. We are really suffering, there is no food to eat, no good water to drink here,” the girl said.

 

A Boko Haram militant was also shown in the 11 -minute video speaking in Hausa language in which the girls were shown either sitting or standing in the background wearing hijabs, according to AP.

 

The Boko Haram militant warned President Muhammadu Buhari’s government against continuing with the bombing of the group’s location if government was interested in rescuing the girls.

 

“Presently, some of the girls are crippled, some are terribly sick and some of them, as I had said, died during bombardment by the Nigerian military,” the fighter says, appearing before a group of more than 40 young women in headscarves and hijabs.

 

“If our members in detention are not freed, let the government and parents of the Chibok girls know that they will never find these girls again.”

 

The fighter also claimed the Chibok girls are held by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, who has been battling for leadership of the group with Mousab Al-Barnawi named by Islamic State group as the new leader of what it calls its West Africa Province.

 

Ryan Cummings, director at intelligence firm Signal Risk, told AFP that the video show that the group is desperate to see an end to the onslaught of the Nigerian military against it.

 

“The video shows that the war effort is hurting the operations of the group,” Cummings said.

 

“It does have a sense of almost desperation from Boko Haram.”

 

AFP also reported that Hadiza Usman, a leader of the Bring Back Our Girls movement said she had seen the video and is contacting parents in order to confirm the identities of the girls.

 

“What we are doing at the moment is to get some relatives and the family to confirm fully that some of those girls were abducted,” Usman said.

 

Some of the girls of the over 270 girls kidnapped by the insurgents escaped on their own within two days of the abduction. One girl escaped this year, saying she had been led to freedom by her Boko Haram “husband.”

 

Over 200 of the girls remained missing. Boko Haram had also released a video showing the kidnapped girls some months after their abduction.

 

The Nigerian government has not reacted to the video

 

 


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