An off-camera voice asks each girl: “What is your name?”
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At the end, one child, named as Naomi Zakaria, makes what appears to a scripted appeal to the Nigerian authorities for help. “I am speaking on 25 December 2015, on behalf of the all the Chibok girls and we are all well”.
The last time the girls were seen publicly was in a May 2014 video released by Boko Haram.
To mark two years since the mass abduction, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, called for immediate action to release the girls.
Despite a celebrity-backed social media campaign to highlight their plight, the Nigerian government has been unable to secure their release. Soon after, Boko Haram sent a video to the government requesting an initial exchange of the girls for their commanders. But another video emerged last week saying there would be no surrender.CNN says the video produced by the girls’ captors has prompted renewed outrage over the kidnappings that broke hearts of people worldwide, even as it underscored the anguish of the girls’ families and the horrors that the girls must be facing.
Many of those who have managed to escape have come back pregnant or with children.
He said, “There are ongoing talks”. “We cannot ignore offers, we cannot ignore leads, but of course many of these investigations cannot be disclosed openly because they could also endanger the negotiations”, said Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of information.
“The girls were looking very, very well”, Galang said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation after a screening of the video in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria. “One cries out, ‘My Saratu, ‘ wailing as she reaches out as if to pluck her daughter from the computer screen”. Parents have identified their daughters in a new video, lifting hopes for loved ones that the girls are still alive.
For the mothers of these girls rapidly becoming women far from home, the video is overwhelming.
Unicef also found that Boko Haram is increasingly using children to act as “suicide bombers”.
Nigeria’s military has cited the same fears, but that has not stopped it from attacking towns and villages where Boko Haram has held thousands of captives.
According to The New York Times, a spokesman for President Mauhammadu Buhari, Garba Shehu said, “Nobody knows where they are”. It’s the first footage we’ve seen of the girls since 2014 and a haunting reminder that 214 young girls are still missing.
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“The President assures the parents that the Federal Government and security agencies will continue to explore all possible options for the safe return of the girls”.
