Abducted Chibok girls ‘no longer in Nigeria’

Hopes that the 230 secondary school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents will be rescued are fading by the day.

According to a BBC report, some of the abducted girls have been taken across the border to Cameroon and Chad.

A man described as “local leader” in Chibok, Borno State, Pogo Bitrus, told the BBC that there had been sightings of gunmen crossing with the girls into the neighbouring countries.

He also said some of the girls had been forced to marry the militants, thus confirming the suspicion that the students were not kidnapped for ransom.

Boko Haram is yet to confirm kidnapping the girls.

Bitrus did not also tell the BBC why he was very sure of his narration.

The girls were kidnapped at night two weeks ago, with 43 of them eventually regaining their freedom after allegedly running away.

The teenage students were preparing to write their final year exam.

“We learned that one of the ‘grooms’ brought his ‘wife’ to a neighbouring town in Cameroon and kept her there,” Bitrus told the BBC. “I’m crying now as community leader to alert the world to what’s happening so that some pressure would be brought to bear on government to act.”

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau first threatened to treat captured women and girls as slaves in a video released in May 2013.

Bitrus said everyone in the community felt as though their own daughters had been abducted.

He said women were “crying and wailing” while men were braving it out.