Boko Haram claim air force strikes have killed some Chibok girls in Sambisa Forest

TERRORIST sect Boko Haram have released a new video of the abducted Government Girls Secondary School Chibok pupils kidnapped over two years ago in which one of them claims that Nigerian Air Force (Naf) airstrikes have killed some of her colleagues.

 

In April 2014, Boko Haram abducted the girls from their boarding school in Borno State in the middle of the night and have held on to them ever since. Despite a concerted campaign for their release, the girls are still being held captive amid signs that Boko Haram intend using them as a bargaining chip to secure an amnesty.

 

Of late, the Nigerian military has gained the initiative in the fight against Boko Haram, recapturing a lot of territory and Naf has been pounding them from the air. In what appears to be a case of Boko Haram feeling the pressure, it released a video in which it accused Naf of killing some of the girls abducted from Chibok.

 

In this latest video, released by the Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram, purportedly showing some of the missing girls, it was claimed several were killed during the air force strikes on its camps in Sambisa Forest. However, Nigeria's defence headquarters refuted Boko Haram’s claim, saying that while it was still studying the video to ascertain its veracity, it was improbable that its airstrikes could have killed innocent citizens since the defence forces took extra care to protect civilian population in the theatre of war.

 

Defence spokesman Brigadier Abubakar Rabe, said: “It is extremely difficult and rare to hit innocent people during airstrikes because the operation is done through precision attack on identified and registered targets and locations. Precision airstrike is very effective at taking out targeted enemies because it is not a random operation but we are nevertheless studying the video clips to examine if the victims died from other causes rather from the allegation of airstrikes."

 

Information minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the government was in touch with the Shekau faction of the terror group, stating that it would do all within its powers to secure the release of the girls. He added that the federal government was, however, being extremely careful because the negotiations had been compounded by the split in the leadership of Boko Haram.