Kano (Nigeria), May 5: Boko Haram on Monday claimed the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in northern Nigeria that has triggered international outrage, threatening to sell them as “slaves”.
“I abducted your girls,” the Islamist group's leader Abubakar Shekau said in the 57-minute video obtained by AFP, referring to the 276 students kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok, Borno state, three weeks ago.
Fifty-three of the girls managed to escape from the militants but 223 were still being held, state police said last Friday. Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration have been under mounting pressure to act since gunmen stormed the girls’ school on April 14, forcing them from their dormitories onto truck and driving them into the bush.
In the latest video, Shekau is seen dressed in combat fatigues standing in front of an armoured personnel carrier and two pick-up trucks mounted with sub-machine guns.“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, claiming his group was holding the girls as “slaves”.
