One of the teenagers who escaped from Islamic extremists who abducted more than 300 schoolgirls says the kidnapping was "too terrifying for words," and she's scared to go back to school.
The radical Boko Haram sect, led by Imam Abubakar Shekau, may have laid landmines in the jungle of northeast Nigeria to thwart attempts to free the schoolgirls, a military expert says. (Associated Press)
Nineteen-year-old science student Sarah Lawan tells The Associated Press that more girls could have escaped but they were frightened by threats to shoot them.
She says they were driven in a truck for hours after the gunmen took them from their school in the pre-dawn hours of April 15 before the truck stopped. They were asked to get down and she and a friend bolted into the bushes. Lawan spoke in a phone interview from Chibok, the site of the mass abduction in northeast Nigeria.
She is among 53 students who escaped while 276 remain captive.
A military expert on Saturday said the Islamist militants who took the girls from their dormitory may have laid landmines in the Nigerian jungle and could be forced out of the forests by food shortages.
"One thing for sure is that, even as they go along abducting children, they are also going after food," Commodore Darlington Abdullah told reporters.
- Boko Haram: The group behind the brazen Nigerian schoolgirl kidnappings
- Boko Haram formed amid Nigerian government corruption
- Nigeria: Oil riches can't hide a wealth of social ills
- Canadian demonstrators rally for Nigerian schoolgirls
"If the military from various countries close up on them, that means the issue of starvation would come in and that might even force them to begin to find exit ways and most likely abandon the girls that are still with them within the forest," he said.
Activist Dr. Delois Blakely chants while holding a flower and the flag of Nigeria during a rally in front of the Nigerian consulate on Saturday in New York. More such rallies were expected to be held around the world on Sunday. (Julio Cortez/The Associated Press)
The Nigerian government's inability to rescue the girls nearly a month after they were abducted by the Boko Haram group has sparked worldwide outrage, protests and a social media campaign.
The United States and other countries have sent teams of technical experts to assist the Nigerian government's search effort.
Boko Haram has staged many attacks in northeastern Nigeria over the years, a campaign of bombings and massacres that has intensified despite a strong military offensive.
Since May 2013 there has been a state of emergency in three northeastern Nigerian states.
Boko Haram has killed more than 1,500 people this year, compared to an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar