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Boko Haram claims responsibility for kidnapping Nigeria schoolgirls Boko Haram claims responsibility for kidnapping Nigeria schoolgirls
(about 3 hours later)
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility on Monday for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in north-east Nigeria last month and threatened to "sell them on the market", the French news agency AFP has reported, citing a video. The leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has said that more than 270 schoolgirls snatched from their dorms were "slaves" that he planned to sell in the market.
On 14 April, Boko Haram stormed an all-girl secondary school in the village of Chibok, in Borno state, then packed the teenagers, who had been taking exams, on to lorries and disappeared into a remote area along the border with Cameroon. "I abducted your girls," a man claiming to be Abubakar Shekau, the group's leader, said in a video seen by the Guardian. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will sell them off and marry them off. There is a market for selling humans."
The brazenness and brutality of the school attack shocked Nigerians, who have been growing accustomed to hearing about atrocities in an increasingly bloody five-year-old Islamist insurgency in the north. "Women are slaves. I want to reassure my Muslim brothers that Allah says slaves are permitted in Islam," he added, in an apparent reference to an ancient tradition of enslaving women captured during jihad, or holy war. Speaking in northern Nigeria's Hausa language during an hour-long rambling speech, he threatened further attacks on schools, and warned the international community not to get involved in Nigeria. Shekau has previously called western education "a plot against Islam" and urged his fighters to kill students and teachers.
"I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah," Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in the video, according to AFP, which is normally the first media outlet to get hold of Shekau's videos. "I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine," says Shekau at another point in the video.
Boko Haram, now seen as the main security threat to Africa's leading energy producer, is growing bolder and extending its reach. The kidnapping occurred on the same day as a bomb blast, also blamed on Boko Haram, that killed 75 people on the edge of Abuja and marked the first attack on the capital in two years. The chilling message came as police questioned 'Gbenga Sesan – the activist behind the popular Twitter campaign #BringBackOurGirls – and two women who helped organise protests calling for the government to do more to rescue the girls. Saratu Angus Ndirpaya and Naomi Mutah Nyadar were detained after attending a meeting with the president's wife, Patience, who, in a bizarre twist, suggested the mass abductions had never happened and were instead a conspiracy to derail her husband's presidential campaign in elections next year.
The militants, who say they are fighting to reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, repeated that bomb attack more than two weeks later in almost exactly the same spot, killing 19 people and wounding 34 in the suburb of Nyanya. At least 300 teenage girls were snatched in a dawn raid in Chibok, in Boko Haram's north-eastern heartland of Borno state, on 15 April. President Goodluck Jonathan did not publicly comment on the mass abductions until two weeks later, and the government's clumsy handling of the case afterwards has triggered protests across almost every major city.
The girls' abductions have been hugely embarrassing for the government and threaten to completely overshadow its first hosting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) for Africa on 7-9 May. On Sunday evening, Jonathan pledged that the government would find the girls and return them to their families. "This is a trying time for this country. It is painful," he said. Diplomats say the government is in talks with both the UK and the US for assistance in bolstering the country's security.
Nigerian officials had hoped the event would highlight their country's potential as an investment destination since it became Africa's biggest economy after a GDP recalculation in March. Mallam Mpur, whose two nieces are among the missing, said parents were already reeling from reports the girls had been sold as "brides" to the extremists. He couldn't yet face telling the parents and relatives who gather at his home for daily updates and support about the latest threats, he added. "In a few hours it will be exactly three weeks since our girls were taken away – we are counting every hour," he said.
The apparent powerlessness of the military to prevent the attack or find the girls in three weeks has triggered anger and protests in the north-east and in Abuja. "All I can say is, as parents we are desperate and begging. If the Nigerian government cannot help us, there is no shame in appealing to other African countries or the international community for help."
On Sunday, authorities arrested a leader of a protest staged last week in Abuja that had called on them to do more to find the girls. The arrest has further fuelled outrage against the security forces. Some parents say their attempts to pass on information to authorities have been fruitless. Farmer Dauda said his daughter called him from a militant's forest training camp last week. "One of the Boko Haram people came on the phone and told us not to worry, that our daughter is in safe hands," he told the Guardian. "The man told us, we have warned you not to send your children to school and this is the consequence. Then he told us that if we are patient and follow their orders, we will see our daughter again. But the government are not interested in hearing when we try to speak to them."
Naomi Mutah Nyadar was picked up by police after a meeting she and other campaigners had held with President Goodluck Jonathan's wife, Patience, concerning the girls. Around 50 girls who escaped did so by fleeing their captors in the confusion of looting, or jumping off trucks and fleeing for miles on foot through the dense Sambisa forest. Two girls have since died of snakebites, according to intermediaries in contact with the militants.
Nyadar was taken to Asokoro police station, near the presidential villa, said fellow protester Lawan Abana, whose two nieces are among the abductees. Another Chibok elder, whose house was burned down during the five-hour raid by Boko Haram, said life was continuing in a state of terror. "Any little noise we hear at night, we all run out into the bush fearing for our lives," said the villager, adding that some households had resorted to organising their own night watch rotas.
Police were not immediately available to comment on the incident, but a presidency source said Nyadar had been detained because she had falsely claimed to be the mother of one of the missing girls. Abana said she had made no such claim. The Christian Association of Nigeria published a list on Sunday of 180 Christian girls – around two thirds of the total 276 – that are still missing.
In a statement, Patience Jonathan denied local media reports that she had ordered Nyadar's arrest but urged the protesters in Abuja to go home, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria said. "Daughters of Zion taken captive, to be treated as slaves and sold into marriage to unclean people," the list was subtitled.
"You are playing games. Don't use schoolchildren and women for demonstrations again. Keep it to Borno, let it end there," the agency quoted her as saying. Its release has been widely criticised by Nigerians in a sign of how anger at the abductions has bridged the sectarian tensions that sometimes flare up between an evenly-divided Muslim and Christian population.
More protests were planned on Monday. These could become a major headache for the government if they continue and coincide with the WEF event, where security arrangements will involve some 6,000 army troops. In a televised broadcast on Sunday the first lady, who holds no official office, was seen alternately weeping and berating community members during a meeting to discuss the kidnappings. She warned against further protest marches. "You are playing games. Don't use schoolchildren and women for demonstration again. Keep it to Borno, let it end there," the official News Agency of Nigeria reported.
In a televised media chat late on Sunday, President Jonathan pledged that the girls would soon be found and released, but also admitted he had no clue where they were. An official from the school who was present at the meeting on Sunday said: "She told us we were not patriotic, that we were members of Boko Haram ourselves and we wanted to disgrace the country."
"Let me reassure the parents and guardians that we will get their daughters out," he said, adding that extra troops had been deployed and aircraft mobilised in the hunt for the girls. The president's approval ratings have taken a battering amid a deteriorating security situation in the runup to elections next year. In a weekly media chat late on Sunday, the president denied that insecurity had worsened, despite two separate bomb blasts on the outskirts of the capital, Abuja, that left 105 dead last month. "I believe we are succeeding" Jonathan said.
The government has launched a massive security operation in the capital as this week it prepares to host the World Economic Forum, where dignitaries and heads of state will discuss Africa's positive growth story.
The glitz of the meeting will elude most ordinary Nigerians. Sitting forlornly on a plastic chair outside a local Abuja police station, one woman who had travelled from Chibok to protest said: "We don't know why the government is treating us like we are less than animals. It is just really painful."