NIGERIA: Residents in Abuja wonder what will happen now that Nigeria's military say they know the location of more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram

Record ID: 236761

  • Title: NIGERIA: Residents in Abuja wonder what will happen now that Nigeria's military say they know the location of more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram
  • Date: 27th May 2014
  • Summary: ABUJA, NIGERIA (MAY 27, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE READING NEWSPAPERS VARIOUS OF NEWSPAPER HEADLINES READING (English): "CHIBOK GIRLS LOCATED" / "WE KNOW GIRLS' LOCATION ,SAYS DEFENCE CHIEF" / "DEFENCE CHIEF: WE'VE LOCATED CHIBOK GIRLS"
  • Embargoed: 11th June 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Crime,Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA9JZNYBGSSO12LX0FOYAKVCLZP
  • Story Text: Residents in Nigeria's capital Abuja, on Tuesday (May 27) contemplated news that the country's military said they knew where more than 200 schoolgirls were, but didn't want to use force to free them.
    It's been seven weeks since Boko Haram militants abducted the girls from their secondary school in the remote northeastern village of Chibok, and little is known of their whereabouts or what the military is doing to get them out.
    Local businessman David Ojediran said, diplomacy should be used to set the girls free: "First of all let me commend the military, they are doing a good job, they are trying their best. But I must say this is an issue of life and death, it's not, it's beyond the issue of they have seen the location of those children, but what we Nigerians, what we need now is we need action, and how do I mean, they need to apply the principle of diplomacy, they need to be, the federal government and the military, they need to be diplomatic in their approach to get those girls out of the captivity," he said.
    Another local resident, trader Obinna Amadi, went as far as suggesting the mililtary's statement was just a trick: "Although many people may condemn that for saying it in the open, but my own opinion is that it might be a strategy for them to make the insurgents to relocate those girls, so that they can take them unaware during the process of the relocation of the girls," said Amadi.
    Nigeria accepted help from the United States, Britain, France and China last week and around 80 U.S. troops have started arriving in neighbouring Chad to start a mission to try to free the girls. Surveillance drones are scanning the Sambisa forest, where parents say the girls were last sighted.
    Most officials, think any raid to rescue them would be fraught with danger and probably not worth the risk that the girls would be killed by their captors.
    Since the girls were captured, according to a Reuters count, at least 470 civilians have died violent deaths in various locations at the hands of Boko Haram, which says it is fighting to establish an Islamic state in religiously mixed Nigeria.
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