This video grab image created on Saturday taken from a video released on YouTube purportedly by Boko Haram showing what is claimed to be one of the groups fighters at an undisclosed location standing in front of girls allegedly kidnapped from Chibok in April 2014.
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This is the third video to be released of the girls since they were kidnapped more than two years ago, sparking worldwide outrage. “Some of them have died as a result of bombing by the infidels”, he said.
“Some of the girls, about 40 of them, with God’s permission have been married”.
“We want to send this message first to the parents of these girls for them to know that these girls are still with us, some of them, and secondly they should tell the federal government of Nigeria to, with immediate effect, release our imprisoned brothers”, the man said.
But efforts to free, let alone locate, the girls have proved futile, even as thousands of other Boko Haram prisoners have been released and most of the land occupied by the group has been retaken.
Authorities said in May that one of the missing girls had been found, and President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to rescue the others. The escapee said some of the girls had died but scores remain in captivity under heavy guard.
Sunday’s video is another proof of life.
The video also shows what appears to be the bodies of schoolgirls on the ground, lifeless.
“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.
“Please go and beg the government of Nigeria to release the members of our abductors so that they too can free us and let us come home”.
Army spokesman Rabe Abubakar was quoted as saying by PR Nigeria, an official news agency, that the military disputed the claims that the air force had hit the girls.
Boko Haram has been blamed for some 20,000 deaths and displacing more than 2.6 million people since it launched a brutal insurgency in Nigeria in 2009 that has since spread into several neighbouring countries.
Aid workers say there is a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in newly freed but still risky areas where half a million people are starving and babies dying daily. There has also been a resurgence of polio in areas that had been under Boko Haram’s control.
Two hundred seventy-six girls were originally kidnapped from their dormitories at gunpoint, and 217 are missing still.
The girl speaks in the Chibok dialect.
A spokesman for the Bring Back Our Girls campaign said the video appeared to be legitimate, noting that families of those kidnapped had recognized eight of the girls who appeared in the clip. As the Guardian reports, she identifies herself as Maida Yakubu.
“We’re certain that these are the Chibok girls”, Abdullahi told AFP.
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The video begins with a masked man, carrying a gun, speaking to the camera. As the camera pans, viewers see a somber scene of girls wearing head scarves while at least one girl holds a baby, indicating that the girls are being forcibly married and birthing children for the fighters.
