Saturday, April 19, 2014

Parents Of Abducted School Girls Abandon Search In Sambisa Forest 
Over 100 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped in the north of the country.
Written by Saxone Akhaine, Northern Bureau Chief
Nigerian Guardian

PARENTS and relatives, who resolved to go on a wild search for their abducted daughters in the Sambisa forest of Borno State, said they could not find any of the missing school girls.

A father, who craved anonymity, told the BBC Hausa Service Saturday, that all through the fruitless search in the wild forest, they did not come in contact with any Nigerian soldier in the forest.

   Speaking in an interview with the BBC Hausa service monitored in Kaduna, the father whose daughter was among those abducted by suspected terrorists in Chibok town of Borno State, said that they had commenced the search in the forests at about 6 am but could not trace any of the abducted female students until they (the searchers) gave up at about 6 pm.

     According to the bereaved father, ”we are about 200 in the forest, but we had to return back. We couldn’t sleep there; we saw nothing but make-shift huts that were erected in the bushes, we saw vehicles like that of security agents in the bush, there were so many things, there was even bread.”

“We, however, saw a different set of people who asked of our mission, and we told them. It is a very thick forest and anyone would be scared to explore the forest.

  “Contrary to claims by the authorities that soldiers were in the forest trying to rescue the school girls, we saw nobody, we didn’t see any vigilante agent too, we did not see any security agent, even in our dream. These soldiers, we didn’t see any,“ he said.

The authorities in Borno confirmed to the BBC Hausa that about 30 female students were still in captivity, four days after the suspected terrorists abducted them.

  Affected parents and other relations of the missing girls were deeply worried. The military authorities had also denied a statement earlier made that all the girls were rescued with the exception of eight.

The Principal of the affected school, Asabe Kunbura, had denied giving such information to the military as was earlier claimed.

    Meanwhile, women delegates at the ongoing National Conference have accused President Jonathan of  being insensitive to the abduction of female students by suspected terrorists group.  They blamed the Federal Government for poor rescue mission to secure their release.

   The female delegates also condemned the increasing level of insurgency in the North East region and called on Nigerians to condemn devilish acts against women.

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