Boko Haram video of Chibok girl worries parents

KaNo: The Boko Haram militant group has released a video claiming to show Chibok schoolgirls who refused to be rescued as part of a recent swap deal with the Nigerian government.

In the three-minute video, a woman who claims to be Maida Yakubu, one of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014, is seen wearing a black veil and holding a gun.

Flanked by three other women clad in black, she proclaims her loyalty to Boko Haram, which has been fighting the government since 2009 in an insurgency that has killed over 20,000 people.

When asked by a man in the background why she does not want to return home to her parents, she replies: “The reason is that they live in the town of unbelief. We want them to accept Islam.”

The woman then speaks in the local Chibok dialect for the rest of the video.

But the woman’s mother believes she did so under duress.

“For me, this video is torture,” Esther Muntari said.

“I haven’t slept since I watched it. The tie that binds us is unbreakable. It’s just not pos- sible that my daughter prefers her kidnappers to me,” said the mother of five. Maida is the oldest at 19.

“The video has instilled fear in our minds and has somewhat dampened our hope that our girls will be freed,” Enoch Mark, whose two children are missing, said.

“I don’t think any of our girls would choose to stay with Boko Haram if they were given a choice,” Mark said. “The only explanation” is that Maida was “forced to stay”.

Last week, 82 schoolgirls who were kidnapped three years ago were released in exchange for imprisoned Boko Haram members after negotiations between the extremist group and the government. Presidency spokesman Garba Shehu later disclosed that one girl had refused to leave, saying she had married a Boko Haram fighter. — AFP