Over 200 Nigerian School Girls abducted by militant group Boko Haram.

waltky · Mar 20, 2016

Kidnapped schoolgirls were raped, used as sex slaves

Chibok girls were raped, used as sex slaves Ex-High Commissioner to Nigeria
March 21, 2016 - The United States and British governments knew where at least 80 of the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram were but failed to launch a rescue mission, it has been revealed.

Boko Haram insurgents stormed a secondary boarding school in the remote town of Chibok in Borno State, in April 2014, and seized 276 girls who were preparing for end-of-year exams. Dr Andrew Pocock, the former British High Commissioner to Nigeria, has now revealed that a large group of the missing girls were spotted by British and American surveillance officials shortly after their disappearance, but experts felt nothing could be done. He told The Sunday Times that Western governments felt powerless to help as any rescue attempt would have been too high risk with Boko Haram terrorists using the girls as human shields.

Dr Pocock said: A couple of months after the kidnapping, fly-bys and an American eye in the sky spotted a group of up to 80 girls in a particular spot in the Sambisa forest, around a very large tree, called locally the Tree of Life, along with evidence of vehicular movement and a large encampment. He said the girls were there for at least four weeks but authorities were powerless to intervene and the Nigerian government did not ask for help anyway. He said: A land-based attack would have been seen coming miles away and the girls killed, an air-based rescue, such as flying in helicopters or Hercules, would have required large numbers and meant a significant risk to the rescuers and even more so to the girls. He added: You might have rescued a few but many would have been killed. My personal fear was always about the girls not in that encampment 80 were there, but 250 were taken, so the bulk were not there. What would have happened to them? You were damned if you do and damned if you dont.

A screengrab taken on May 12, 2014, from a video of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram obtained by AFP shows girls, wearing the full-length hijab and praying in an undisclosed rural location. Boko Haram released a new video on claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed. A total of 276 girls were abducted on April 14 from the northeastern town of Chibok, in Borno state, which has a sizeable Christian community. Some 223 are still missing.

In an investigation by Christina Lamb for the Sunday Times Magazine, Dr Pocock said the information was passed to the Nigerians but they made no request for help. The magazine has also seen brutal rape videos which show schoolgirls are being used as sex slaves by the terrorists. Ms Lamb reports: They film schoolgirls being raped over and over again until their scream become silent Os. Some of the girls, who managed to escape, told Ms Lamb they were kept in womens prisons where they were taught about Islam. Boko Haram fighters would visit and pick their wives. The girls were powerless to resist as even then the men would be heavily armed. They were shown videos of people being raped, tortured and killed as a threat of what would happen to them if they tried to run away.

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waltky · Apr 14, 2016

Michelle Obama's quest to rescue Nigerian girls...

Michelle Obama’s hashtag quest to rescue Nigerian girls
Wed, 13 Apr 2016 - Michelle Obama drew attention to the plight of schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria two years ago. They're still missing, but their influence remains.

Michelle Obama told Americans - and the world - about schoolgirls abducted by the extremist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. But the first lady's awareness campaign has failed - at least in part. The incident was shocking, even for those who were familiar with stories of extremist violence. Members of a militant organisation, Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria, on 14 April 2014. Afterwards Michelle Obama posted an image of herself on social media, posing with a white sheet of paper that said: "#BringBackOurGirls".

The hashtag campaign, designed to bring attention to the kidnappings, had already reached 1 million tweets by the time Obama joined, but her statement still made a splash. She gave a public address several days later, talking about the kidnappings. She said her husband was directing the US government do everything possible to help Nigerians bring the girls back. Many people in the US who hadn't heard about the kidnappings - or weren't aware of Boko Haram - suddenly were. And now that the first lady was involved, calling for their return, the Nigerian schoolgirls seemed to have a better chance at freedom.

On Wednesday, nearly two years after the abductions, Obama spoke about the girls during an event about education at the World Bank in Washington. Before Obama appeared at the podium, the World Bank's president, Jim Yong Kim, announced that the bank group was investing $2.5b (£1.76b) in girls' education projects around the world. Then Obama spoke about her initiative, Let Girls Learn, that promotes education for girls. Prime Minister David Cameron has joined her effort, creating a US-UK partnership that devotes $200m to girls' leadership camps and other programmes.

She's said in the past that she put the Let Girls Learn initiative together in part because she was disturbed by the story of the kidnapped schoolgirls. In her speech, though, she mentioned them only briefly. "Why, two years ago, would terrorists be so threatened by the prospect of girls going to school that they would break into a dormitory in the middle of the night?" she said, describing the crime. Beyond that she didn't say much about the girls - and didn't talk about their fate, either.

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Nigerians march for Chibok girls on kidnapping anniversary
14 Apr.`16 -- Angry over lack of progress to resolve one of the highest-profile mass kidnappings in the world, Nigerians marched in their country's major cities on Thursday to demand the safe return of girls who were abducted by Boko Haram extremists two years ago from a school in Chibok.

Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was expected in the northeastern town of Chibok for the anniversary of the kidnappings, said Yakubu Nkeki, leader of a support group of parents of the kidnapped girls. He said the community is angry that their only school remains in ruins. Boko Haram firebombed buildings as they took off with girls. Some 20,000 children in the town and its surroundings have no school to attend, Nkeki said Thursday as parents gathered at the ruins of the school to pray for the safe return of their daughters. "Boko Haram has achieved its aim. They say they don't want us to have Western education and our children don't," Nkeki said.

Two years ago, the Islamic extremists seized 276 girls who had gathered for science exams at the Government Girls Secondary School in the northeast town of Chibok. Some managed to escape, jumping off pickup trucks as the Islamic extremists drove them toward the Sambisa Forest. A total of 219 remain missing. On Wednesday, CNN broadcast parts of a Boko Haram video of girls wearing the Islamic hijab, and CNN also aired its own images of tearful mothers, including one reaching out to a computer screen as she recognized her kidnapped daughter.

Women attend a demonstration in Lagos calling on the government to rescue kidnapped school girls of a government secondary school in Chibok, Nigeria. A school mate says she cried with joy when she saw a Boko Haram video appearing to show some of Nigeria's kidnapped Chibok girls, with images of tearful parents recognizing their daughters, who have not been heard from since the mass abduction by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram two years ago.

The video shows 15 of the girls - one with a mischievous grin, one looking uncompromising, downright defiant, and one downcast. One can feel the pain that shows in the eyes of many of them. They give the date of the video as Christmas, Dec. 25, 2015. While Boko Haram is thought to have abducted thousands of people over the years, the mass abduction brought the extremist group to the world's attention. The campaign hashtag #BringBackOurGirls went as far as the White House, used by U.S. first lady Michelle Obama.CNN reported that the video was sent in December to negotiators trying to free the girls. CNN's report included Information Minister Lai Mohammed saying the government is reviewing and assessing the video, which it apparently demanded as "proof of life" from Boko Haram.

Sen. Shehu Sani, who has been involved in past negotiations with Boko Haram about the Chibok girls, told The Associated Press he found the video credible. Nkeki, leader of the support group for parents of the Chibok girls, said he briefly saw part of the CNN video, in between power blackouts frequent in Nigeria, and "those are definitely our girls." There's been no word from the Chibok girls since May 2014, when Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said they had converted to Islam and threatened to sell them into slavery or forced marriage with his fighters.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-04-14-10-18-57
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Over 200 Nigerian School Girls abducted by militant group Boko Haram.

waltky Well-Known Member

waltky Well-Known Member

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Over 200 Nigerian School Girls abducted by militant group Boko Haram.

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waltky Well-Known Member

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