Chibok girls in ‘proof of life’ video
An indication that the Chibok girls kidnapped from their school on April 14, 2014 were still alive has been given in a video which showed 15 of the more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram.
The video sent to government negotiators by the captors showed the girls wearing black hijabs in an unspecified location, stating their names, that they were taken from Chibok and the date of the recording.
The video, the first concrete indication that at least some of the girls were still alive since a previous video released publicly by Boko Haram in May 2014, was coming two years after the girls were kidnapped.
They were identified by two mothers of the 219 schoolgirls still missing. Another mother shown the video broke into tears because her daughter was not among the fifteen girls in the video.
All three, however, identified all the girls, as did a classmate, who was at home on the day of the kidnapping.
In the video, each of the fifteen girls calmly stated her name and that she was kidnapped from Chibok Government Secondary School.
At the end of the clip, a girl identified as Naomi Zakaria, made an apparently scripted appeal to whoever is watching, urging the Nigerian authorities to help reunite the girls with their families.
Two parents identified their daughters in the video. PHOTO: CNN
“I am speaking on 25 December 2015, on behalf of the all the Chibok girls and we are all well,” Naomi said. Though it is unclear if the video was recorded on the stated date, but the date embedded in the video matched the date stated by Naomi, a CNN report said.
Though it was unclear if the video was recorded on the stated date, but the date embedded in the video matched the date stated by Naomi, a CNN report said.
However, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, told CNN the girls in the video appeared “under no stress whatsoever” and there had been “little transformation in their physical appearance”.
But he declined to comment directly on the state of talks with Boko Haram, which has previously said it would release the girls only in exchange for captured fighters in Nigerian prisons.
“There are ongoing talks. We cannot ignore leads but of course many of these investigations cannot be disclosed openly because it could also endanger the negotiations,” the minister added.
AFP, quoting an anonymous source, reported that members of Boko Haram made contact with the government in mid-January this year, requesting talks about a possible prisoner swap.
The militants then sent five still photographs of some of the girls, also wearing black hijabs, who were identified by some parents as being among those kidnapped from Chibok.
The government then requested more concrete proof in the form of a video, which was then sent.
Parents of the 219 girls were on Thursday set to hold a prayer vigil at the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok to mark the second anniversary of the kidnapping.
Boko Haram seized 276 from their dormitories but 57 managed to escape in the hours that followed.
Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every day of the week. Stay informed with the Guardian’s leading coverage of Nigerian and world news, business, technology and sports.
12 Comments
Chibok chibok chibok and chiboks girls,o lord free these girls by your mercies ijn
I pray Almighty God to intervene for the release of Chibok girls from Boko Haram in Jesus Name, Amen. Lord have mercy and help us. I sympathize with families of the girls and pray God to help them. God bless Nigeria
Those who sponsored Boko Haram shall not go unpunished!
Fayose should please tell Nigerians and his admirers what led him to be making the insensitive statement that the Chibok girls abduction was a ruse, because for every sober Nigerians and the international community the whole thing was mind bugling and sorrowful. Fayose’s name will now be carved in ignominy having been the “most senior” governors among other governors according to his own assumption who “faced the nation” to announce this garbage about the Chibok girls. The pain these women are going through is a reminder that anyone politicizing this issue will surely meet with his appropriate reward and If I were Fayose, upon his return from China he should just make a public apology to the parents of these girl and thereafter forever shut his trap. Any sober person who wants to be taken seriously should not be speaking like this Fayose does. It is for this reason that Buhari has parked him and just allow him to continue boxing himself to a coma. No valuable time should be spent on someone as inconsequential as Fayose since his arguments are rooted in illusion.
Please consider some of these thought-provoking questions:
i) How come that there is not a single Chibok girl among the over 3000 persons that have been freed so far by our security forces?
ii) How come the girls in this video are obviously in such good health when they are supposedly in captivity? The emotional trauma they face alone not to mention the deprivation of basic needs they suffer should have made them look somewhat gaunt, don’t you think so?
iii) Is there a possibility that these girls (even in this small number) could still be kept together for two years? Don’t let us forget that we have been variously told that they have been married off, sold into slavery, taken across our borders, and so on.
May argument isn’t really that there was not abduction. It is that the said abduction was stage-managed and not really an abduction in the real sense of the word. The girls might have been taken and are probably in a safe haven somewhere. The melodrama will unfold in many acts and scenes before our very eyes over time.
Please when you don’t know what to say simply shut it up and stop embarrassing yourself in this forum, Gov. Fayose was only bold enough to say what many Nigerians know and were not willing to say in public due to political correctness, Have you asked yourself why the sudden appearance and videos and disclosures about the Chibok girls started suddenly after Gov.Fayose made that bold statement? The truth is that the sponsors of Boko Haram and those who staged the chibok girls fiasco are not very smart, people just kept quiet because of political interest not that they don’t know that chibok was a scam.
Can you express your opinion without being caustic? That is the beauty of democracy and civility and I urge you and your generation to protect that right. God bless you.
The truth is yet to emerge. Fayose should be praised for forcing the abductors to show the video. Hopefully all these will lead to the release of the abducted girls by those who did it to discredit Jonathan
Then the Govt must receive their assurances that the Girls are all intact.These bloody thirsty elements might have been using these Girls for ritual purposes . How are we sure that out of 219 ,it remain only 15 of them yet to slaughtered and which they showing their pictures.? They should be made to show Picture of all the Girls and not only fifteen.
It was Obasanjo that started the doubt game about Chibok girls. Every effort the last administration made about Chibok was politicised by the same government as opposition, now the ball is in their court..Let us see sharp results. Talk is cheap. Oby ezekwesili and co. has gone to sleep. God himself will console the parents.
Many still believe that the Chibok girls story is make-believe.
It was Obasanjo that started the doubt game about Chibok girls. Every
effort the last administration made about Chibok was politicised by the
same government as opposition, now the ball is in their court..Let us
see sharp results. Talk is cheap. Oby ezekwesili and co. has gone to
sleep. God himself will console the parents.
We will review and take appropriate action.