Nigeria Boko Haram Abduction: Escaped Girl Speaks about Chibok Ordeal


Nigeria Boko Haram

CNN



A teenage girl has described her escape from an Islamist Boko Haram night raid in the Nigerian village of Chibok as the search for over 200 schoolgirls continues.


The insurgents stormed a secondary school in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state and captured the schoolgirls during their exam period, sparking a worldwide rescue effort.


The girl, who refused to be identified for fear of repercussions, told CNN in an exclusive interview how the militants were loading the girls onto numerous lorries before escaping into the bush.


"He said go and enter this car - a big lorry," she said. "They say OK - enter this lorry, we go. I say I will drop down.


"We run in the bush. We ran and ran and we were gone. I feel afraid," she continued.


Responding to questions about the attackers' appearance, the girl refused to comment because of her fears of a reprisal against her family.


Another witness from the village told CNN that "it was like they were coming for a shopping trip."


The girls are still being held hostage and Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says that the girls will be sold unless all Boko Haram prisoners are released.


"I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah," he said in a video message.


"Allah has instructed me to sell them. They are his property and I will carry out his instructions."


He then showed what he said were about 130 of the girls, wearing full-length hijabs and praying in an undisclosed rural location.


The kidnap of the girls has ignited an international reaction which has seen the US, UK and France offering technical and intelligence expertise to the Nigeria government as well as an Israeli counter-terrorism team being deployed in the rescue effort.


Boko Haram insurgents want to convert Nigeria into a strict sharia state and over 1,500 people have been killed in attacks perpetrated by the group this year alone.



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