Relations of some of the over 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram insurgents have identified them from video images released Monday by the sect which claimed that many of the girls had converted to Islam.
Also, the United States is conducting manned surveillance flights to search for the schoolgirls kidnapped last month by the Islamist group, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Furthermore, Federal Government sources said yesterday that it was still open to negotiate the release of the girls with Boko Haram.
“The window of negotiation is still open. The government had set up a committee to negotiate with Boko Haram, so if they have any negotiation to make it should be channelled through the committee,” Tanimu Turaki, minister of special duties, told Reuters by telephone. Turaki heads up the negotiation committee.
Meanwhile, relatives and friends of the abducted Nigerian schoolgirls have identified some of them from a video released by Boko Haram Islamist militants.
The footage showed about 130 of more than 200 girls who were kidnapped a month ago from their boarding school in Borno State reciting Koranic verses.
A mother of an abducted Nigerian schoolgirl identified her daughter in the video that showed dozens of girls in captivity, a school leader said on Tuesday.
The mother watched the video on television on Monday evening and spotted her daughter among the girls sitting on the ground and wearing veils, said Dumoma Mpur, parent-teachers association chairman at Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria.
Boko Haram’s leader says the captured girls who have not converted to Islam can be swapped for jailed fighters.
