They have all been forced to convert to Islam and will only be released if Islamist prisoners are freed
The
schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamic militant group Boko Haram have been paraded on
video.
The
terror group said all of them had been converted to Islam while being held and
all were shown wearing headscarfs.
The
group's leader said that it will release them in exchange for militant
prisoners being freed.
Some girls on the 1:11minutes-long video, which was obtained by news agency AFP, spoke to camera, and looked extremely nervous.
The video, which appeared to show around 100 girls, was aired after the governor of the Nigerian state from where the schoolgirls were kidnapped said that he knew where some of them are being held.
Kashim Shettima, the Governor of Borno, said that he’d received reports of sightings of the girls and had passed on this information to the military.
Extremist group Boko Haram seized 276 girls who were taking exams at a school in Borno's north-eastern village of Chibok on April 14. Some managed to escape, but around 200 remain missing.
Mr Shettima told the BBC: ‘We've got reports of them being sighted in some locations – which we have conveyed to the relevant military authorities, for them to cross-check, verify and get additional information on the accurate location of the daughters.’
His comments came as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, called for negotiations with the terrorist group over the fate of the missing girls.
The Archbishop, who has acted as a hostage negotiator in Nigeria on behalf of the Church in the past, said the girls were at ‘colossal’ risk.
‘They are in the hands of a
very disparate group which is extremely irrational and difficult to deal with –
and utterly merciless,’ he told BBC Radio Four’s The World
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