(Militant video/Site Institute via AP).
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A new Boko Haram video shows dozens of the abducted girls with one saying that “some” have died in military air strikes.
This Monday May 12, 2014 file image taken from video by Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist network, shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. Sunday Aug. 14, 2016. The Nigerian government said it is trying its best to work towards the girls’ release, who are thought to be in northern Nigeria.
The video was the latest release from Boko Haram’s embattled leader Abubakar Shekau, who this month denied claims that he has been replaced as the leader of the jihadist group. The mother of one of the.
“The speaker said military air strikes had killed numerous kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, and he asked the parents of these girls to press the government to release the groups’ fighters from prisons across Nigeria”, the correspondent said.
The BBC interviewed another victim’s father, Samuel Yaga, and he confirmed his daughter Serah Samuel is one of the girls who appears in the video.
Boko Haram kidnapped 219 girls from their school in Chibok, in April 2014, as part of a seven-year-old insurgency to set up an Islamic state in the north that has killed some 15,000 people and displaced more than two million.
Still, the militant has an ominous message for the girls’ parents: “They should know that their children are still in our hands”.
Earlier, Esther had said that she regretted putting Dorcas in boarding school.
The Nigerian government has said it is still “in touch” with the organization and is “working for the girls’ release”, the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture said on its Facebook page, according to CNN.
The group added that the excuse of a split within the terrorists’ ranks or a period of validation of the authenticity of their claims should not suffice and urged for an immediate, transparent, action and results-oriented response plan by the federal government.
A man wearing camouflage gear in the video called on the government to release Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls. She says some of her classmates have been married off to Boko Haram militants. 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.
Speaking after the visit, she said: “They told me they will go and read and get back to me”.
“What we have been telling the government is what Boko Haram demanded in the video”.
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‘Every day we are in pains and suffering, so are our babies. No one cares for us. While the army is basing its action on the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2011, which mandates full co-operation of Nigerians in disclosing information about terrorist activities, its method has been criticized as an attack on the free press.
