Boko Haram have released footage of dozens of the more than 300 schoolboys it kidnapped last week in Nigeria.
A distraught teenager, surrounded by dozens of younger boys, speaks in English and Hausa saying: ‘We have been caught by the gang of Abu Shekau.’
His voice starts to falter as he says: ‘Please, please, we need your assistance,’ while the other children shout out to the camera before the recording ends.
Shekau’s jihadists kidnapped around 330 children from the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in northwestern Katsina state on Friday.
The distraught teenager in the video released by Boko Haram on Thursday. Surrounded by dozens of younger boys, he speaks in English and Hausa saying: ‘We have been caught by the gang of Abu Shekau’
Dozens of younger boys are seen standing in a copse of trees and bushes behind the teenager singled out Boko Haram to deliver the message. Around 330 boys are believed to still be missing after Friday’s kidnapping
Boko Haram terror chief Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday – he released a further audio clip today as they released footage of the boys
Today’s video was released with a recording made by the group’s elusive leader Shekau. It reiterated Boko Haram’s claim of responsibility.
‘I earlier released an audio confirming our people did Allah’s work, but people denied it,’ the voice said. ‘Here are my men, and your children have spoken.’
Shekau, who was behind the 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, released an audio clip earlier this week explaining why the boys had been kidnapped.
He said Boko Haram sought ‘to promote Islam and discourage un-Islamic practices as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his holy Prophet.’
More than 100 gunmen wielding AK-47s and riding motorcycles stormed the rural school north of Kankara town, forcing pupils to flee and hide in the surrounding bush.
Some were able to escape, but many were captured, split into groups and taken away, residents said.
The government has not immediately reacted to Boko Haram’s claims today, nor confirmed the exact number of children missing.
Two accounts by different officials have put the number of schoolboys at 320 or 333.
One of those who escaped, 17-year-old Usama Aminu said that they were forced to walk through the night by the militants before they let them sit down to rest.
Nigeria launched a rescue operation in which the police, air force and army tracked the kidnappers to their hideout in the Zango/Paula forest.
‘When the bandits heard the sound of the helicopter hovering above they asked us to lay down under the large trees with our face to the ground,’ Aminu said.
During their hike, Aminu said they met young boys in their teens, armed with guns. He said some were younger than him.
Aminu, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, held onto the shoulders of two freinds during the trek ‘as the bandits continued to flog people from the back so that they can move faster.’
One of those who escaped, 17-year-old Usama Aminu who told reporters about how the militants flogged boys who walked too slowly during their trek to the hideout
Usama Aminu, 17, a kidnapped student of Government Science Secondary School who escaped from bandits, left, and his father Aminu Male, sit together during an interview with Associated Press in Kankara, Nigeria, Wednesday
Boko Haram, and a splinter group the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), are waging an insurgency in Nigeria northeast and are thought to have only a minor presence in the northwest. However, Tuesday’s claim of responsibility marks a major turning point – suggesting that the Islamists have made major inroads into the northwest
After dark, the boy decided to recite passages from the Quran. It was then that he managed to slip away unnoticed into the night and hide in a mosque.
A local resident eventually found him coughing and offered him a change of clothes so that he could leave his school uniform behind, he said.
He returned home at around 11pm on Sunday.
His father, Aminu Ma’le, said he was relieved but still worried for the others. ‘I cannot celebrate alone because of the other boys still missing,’ said the father.
Katsina State governor Aminu Bello Masari said that 17 boys have been rescued since the attack, including 15 by the military, another by police and one boy found roaming in the forest who was brought in by residents. Aminu was among those boys.
Protesters marched in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday under a banner reading #BringBackOurBoys as pressure mounted on the government to secure their release.
Parents fear time is running out to bring the boys home. Boko Haram has a history of turning captives into jihadist fighters.
Dozens of people attended a march through the city of Katsina in response to The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), a civil society body that focuses on the welfare of northern Nigerians. Some chanted ‘Save northern Nigeria’.
The hashtag #BringBackOurBoys has been trending on Twitter in recent days and echoes a campaign that was launched to bring home the girls abducted in 2014.
‘Northern Nigeria has been abandoned at the mercy of vicious insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, rapists and an assortment of hardened criminals,’ said Balarabe Ruffin, CNG’s national coordinator.
Protesters marched in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday under a banner reading #BringBackOurBoys as pressure mounted on the government to secure their release
Supporters of the ‘Coalition of Northern Groups’ (CNG) rally to urge authorities to rescue hundreds of abducted schoolboys, in northwestern state of Katsina, Nigeria, today
Protesters in Katsina today to demand the government free the kidnapped boys
He said there was a ‘huge vacuum in the political will and capacity of government to challenge’ the kidnappers.
Late on Wednesday, Katsina state Governor Aminu Bello Masari told the BBC Hausa service the missing boys were in the forests of neighbouring Zamfara state.
An aide to Masari said soldiers and intelligence officers had been combing the Rugu forest, which stretches across Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger states, in search of the boys.
Regional security experts say the boys could be taken over the nearby border into Niger, which would make finding them harder.
For more than a decade, Boko Haram has engaged in a bloody campaign to introduce strict Islamic rule in Nigeria’s north.
Football boots and shoes are seen scattered across a deserted classroom in the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara after the abduction
A bullet-ridden window is seen at the school security post of the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Nigeria, Wednesday
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau speaks in front of guards in an unknown location in Nigeria in this still image taken from an undated video obtained on January 15, 2018
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau brandishes a machine gun in a broadcast from two years ago
Thousands have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced by the violence.
Boko Haram has been mainly active in northeast Nigeria, but with the abductions from the school in Katsina state, there is worry the insurgency is expanding to the northwest.
The abductions of the schoolboys is a frightening reminder of Boko Haram’s previous attacks on schools. In February 2014, 59 boys were killed when the jihadists attacked the Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State.
In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from a government boarding school in Chibok in northeastern Borno State. About 100 of those girls are still missing.