President Goodluck
Jonathan has reportedly seen a new video released by Boko Haram, where the abducted school girls spoke about their
ordeal in the hands of the insurgents for the first time and pleaded with him
to secure their release. The girls were reportedly ill and are in camps located
in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, with one of them nursing a broken wrist.
The video, according to The
Mail of London, indicated that the girls looked healthy, as eight of them,
dressed in their home-made school uniforms of pale blue gingham, pleaded for
release while standing courageously in front of the camera.
They were reportedly clearly scared, upset and trying to be
brave, with each walking in turn to a spot in front of a white sheet fixed to a
crude frame between the trees.
According to The Mail, four of the girls can be heard
clearly in Hausa language stating that they were taken by force and that they
were hungry. The video indicated that a tall girl, aged about 18, said
tearfully that “My family will be so
worried”, even as another spoke softly, saying ‘I never expected to suffer
like this in my life.”
Similarly, a third girl was captured in the video as saying ‘they have taken us away by force’,
while the fourth complained of not getting enough food.
Boko Haram leader, Abubakar
Shekau, reportedly released the new video of the kidnapped girls praying after
their conversion to Islam.
Meanwhile, Dr Stephen
Davis, an Australian who has advised three Nigerian presidents on how to
negotiate with the country’s militant groups, has spent the past month trying
to help free the girls.
‘The vast majority of
the Chibok girls are not being held in
Nigeria,’ he said. ‘They are in camps
across the Nigerian border in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I say the “vast
majority” as I know a small group was confirmed to me to be in Nigeria last
week when we sought to have them released.’
‘One of that small
group of girls is ill and we had hoped we might convince the commander of the
group holding her that she should be released so we could give her medical
treatment,’ Dr Davis said.
‘There are other girls
who are not well and we have come close to having them released but their
captors fear a trap in which they will be captured in the handover process. ‘One
girl has what I assume is a broken wrist as they demonstrate to me how she holds
her hand. I have been told that others are sick and in need of medical
attention.’
A military source said: ‘This
has been a race against time from the minute they were captured. As soon as the
girls left Nigerian soil, it was always going to be more difficult. ‘The
government made no attempt at a rescue until a month after they were taken. Now
the situation gets more serious by the day.
‘Any sort of attempt
to get to them would have to be cleared by the governments of the other
nations.’
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