April 17, 2014 -- Updated 1356 GMT (2156 HKT)
Families of girls kidnapped from school by suspected Boko Haram militants are accusing the Nigerian military of lying. FULL STORY
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WHO IS BOKO HARAM?
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WHO IS BOKO HARAM?
Nigerian military lied by saying abducted girls freed, families say
April 17, 2014 -- Updated 1625 GMT (0025 HKT)
Terrorist group abducts Nigerian girls
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Britain offers to help Nigeria, UNICEF calls for immediate release
- The girls were seized by suspected Boko Haram militants
- The students were loaded onto buses and trucks, which then sped off
- Military search teams are focusing on a forest in northeast Nigeria
"We have been in grief
for the past four days over the kidnap of our daughters and hoping the
military would rescue them but to our greatest shock and disbelief the
same military has resorted to blatant propaganda, claiming all but eight
of our girls have been freed," said Lawan Zanna, father of one of the
students. "This is a blatant lie."
Only 14 of the 129 students are free, he said.
Three girls escaped their
captors Wednesday and were returned home by herdsmen, Zanna said. Some
other girls escaped from a truck moments after the kidnapping, he said.
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"For the military who is
supposed to find and rescue our children to be spreading such lies shows
that they have no intention of rescuing our girls."
The military, in a
statement, said the school principal had confirmed that only eight of
the students were still missing. The military credited "ongoing search
and rescue operations."
But the principal himself
said that's untrue. "I never made that claim to anybody," said Asabe
Kwambura, principal of Government Girls Secondary School in the town of
Chibok.
"A total of 14 out of the
129 students taken away managed to escape and the rest are still being
held by their captors," he said.
The military also claimed that one of the terrorists who carried out the attack on the school has been captured.
Escaped kidnapping victim: We 'ran into the bush'
The Boko Haram militants
herded the students onto buses, vans and trucks Monday night after a
gun battle with soldiers guarding the boarding school and drove off,
flanked by motorcycles, authorities said.
"They forced us into
trucks, buses and vans, some of which were carrying foodstuffs and
petrol. They left with us in a convoy into the bush," said one of the
girls, who escaped but declined to be named for security reasons. "A
group of motorcyclists flanked the convoy to ensure none of us escaped."
At one point, one of the
trucks broke down and the girls on that vehicle were transferred to
another one, the student said. The broken down truck was set on fire,
she added.
When another vehicle
broke down and the men tried to fix it, "some of us jumped out of the
vehicles and ran into the bush. We later found our way back to Chibok,"
she said, referring to the northeastern town where her school is
located.
Boko Haram, which
translates as "Western education is sin," is an Islamist militant group
waging a campaign of violence in northeastern Nigeria, particularly in
Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.
The group is known to have carried out deadly attacks on other schools in the northeast.
In early March, Borno
closed all its 85 secondary schools and sent more than 120,000 students
home after increasing attacks by the group. Chibok is in Borno state.
Rescue teams, aided by
surveillance helicopters, were moving deeper into the vast forest that
extends into neighboring Cameroon and other states in the region, Ali
Ndume, a senator representing southern Borno state, said Wednesday.
A broken down truck
believed to have been part of the kidnapping convoy was found abandoned
at the edge of the forest, which suggests the abductors took their
hostages into the woods on foot, he added.
Britain offers help
UNICEF has called for the girls' "immediate and unconditional release."
The agency "is deeply
concerned about the persistent trend of attacks on schools in Nigeria,"
UNICEF Regional Director Manuel Fontaine said. "Most recently,
unidentified gunmen killed 53 children between 13 and 17 years old at
the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, in February."
British Foreign
Secretary William Hague was among the world leaders condemning the
kidnappings. "We stand ready to provide assistance to help the Nigerian
government ensure that these children can be returned to their families
in safety, and to bring to justice those responsible" for the "cowardly
act," he said.
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