New Boko Haram ‘video shows Chibok girls’

Avideo released in Nigeria on Monday by Boko Haram purports to show girls among those abducted in 2014 from a school in the town of Chibok vowing to stay with their captors and never go home.

About a dozen girls, some with faces covered, appear in the video, one of several released in recent days by Boko Haram, the Islamist group terrorising northern Nigeria in a war that has spilt across borders and raged for nearly nine years.

“We are the Chibok girls,” one of the girls said in the video, according to translations by new agencies. “We are the ones you are crying about for us to come back. By the grace of God we are never coming back.”

It was unclear if the girls in the video were in fact among the nearly 300 who in April 2014 were kidnapped by fighters from their school in northeastern Nigeria as they were preparing for exams. Allen Manasa, a spokesman for the village of Chibok, said he could not verify the identities of anyone in the video. The girls’ families have not yet seen the video, he said.

It was impossible to tell from the video if the girls’ message had been coerced. Many female captives of Boko Haram have been forced into being sex slaves and suicide bombers.

During their time in captivity, the girls from Chibok have been used by militants as examples, according to other women held as captives. They are fed well and shown off to would-be conscripts to demonstrate how they will receive better treatment if they follow Boko Haram’s orders. The video released Monday shows about a dozen girls, some with small children.