Suspected Boko Haram Islamists have kidnapped eight more girls from a remote village in north-eastern Nigeria just three weeks after snatching nearly 300 schoolgirls who the militant group’s leader has warned face being sold into slavery.
The latest attack, news of which took a couple of days to emerge, comes as the Nigerian government faces growing criticism for its failure to find the schoolgirls and curb the activities of the group that has claimed thousands of lives in its five-year insurgency.
Residents in Warabe in Borno State said that armed militias in two camouflaged vehicles swooped on the village on Sunday night, taking girls and torching homes. "They moved door to door looking for girls," said Abdullahi Sani, a resident. "They forcefully took away eight girls between the ages of 12 and 15."
Parents of the newly abducted girls will be painfully aware of their potential fate after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau's chilling threat to sell schoolgirls taken from Chibok village, also in Borno, in the early hours of 15 April as slaves in the market.
The girls, who were at the boarding school to take their final exams, were aged between 16 and 18. The extremist leader’s comments in a video released on Monday confirmed the worst fears of the girls’ relatives amid unconfirmed local reports that some of the girls had already been sold as "brides" in neighbouring Chad and Cameroon for 2,000 naira (£8).
Stewart, C. (2014). Boko Haram kidnaps more girls – and the world asks why Nigeria has. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/boko-haram-kidnaps-more-girls-and-the-world-asks-why-nigeria-has-done-so-little-9328328.html [Accessed 8 May 2016].
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