The father of one of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped from the remote area of Chibok more than two years ago said he recognized his daughter in a video released by Boko Haram on Sunday.
A spokesman for the Bring Back Our Girls movement, set up to demand the return of 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014, said he was “certain” of the identities of 10 other girls seen in the footage.
“When I heard her voice, I realised she is my daughter,” Kanu Yakubu told reporters in Abuja.
He was referring to Maida Yakubu, whom he identifies as the girl seen in the video choking back her tears as she describes an air strike by the Nigerian armed forces.
The girl speaks in the Chibok dialect.
Bring Back Our Girls spokesman Abubakar Abdullahi earlier on Sunday said at least one of the girls had been recognised by a member of the movement.
The number of girls identified from the video has now risen significantly, he said.
“We’re certain that these are the Chibok girls,” Abdullahi told AFP.
As reported by Nigeria’s TV360Nigeria media;
Part of the transcript of the video reads, “It pleased God to let us have these girls in our captivity for over two years now. Our first message is to the parents of the girls to let them know that their daughters are still with us, some of them.
“I also want to tell them to ask the Nigerian government to release our brethren especially those in Maiduguri, Lagos and Abuja and other places across Nigeria. They should be released immediately.”
“You all knew that we had the girls, but God never allowed you to know their location and you will never know by God’s grace. You keep lying in your media that you will rescue them, they have been with us for over two years, yet you can’t even know where they are. You have just been lying about these girls, people should know that.”
“Also, for the over two years that we have been with these girls, about forty of them are married, some are dead as a result of airstrike by infidels. We will show you a video of how your own aircraft dropped a bomb that killed some of these girls. Some of the girls have suffered fractures and other forms of injuries as a result of the air strikes.”
“As you can see, these are the girls, all we want is for you to release our brethren otherwise you will never get these girls God willing. This in short is our message to the Federal Government and the parents of the Chibok Girls.
As long as the government does not release our people, we will also never release these girls, that is our message.”
The Director Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar is quoted saying;
“It is extremely difficult and rare to hit innocent people during airstrike because the operation is done through precision attack on identified and registered targets and locations. The Precision Airstrike is very effective at taking out targeted enemies because it is not a random operation. We are nevertheless studying the video clips to examine if the victims died from other causes rather from the allegation of airstrike.
