Nigeria Military Says Knows Where Girls Are, Wary of Using Force

World Today

A coalition of Kenyan women’s groups stage a protest in solidarity with their counterparts in Nigeria and demanding the release of the hundreds of schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria by the Muslim extremist group Boko Haram, in downtown Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, May 15, 2014. Nigeria’s government is ruling out an exchange of more than 270 kidnapped schoolgirls for detained Islamic militants, Britain’s top official for Africa said Wednesday, but Nigeria’s government will talk to the militants on reconciliation, British foreign office minister Mark Simmonds said, talking after a meeting with Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan. (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi)

Nigeria’s military knows where the more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram are but has ruled out using force to rescue them, according to Air Marshal Alex Badeh, Nigeria’s chief of defense staff. CCTV”s Jim Spellman reports. 

Nigeria Military Says Knows Where Girls Are, Wary of Using Force

Nigeria's military knows where the more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram are but has ruled out using force to rescue them, according to Air Marshal Alex Badeh, Nigeria's chief of defense staff. CCTV"s Jim Spellman reports.

Seven weeks since Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 girls taking exams in a secondary school in the remote northeastern village of Chibok and little is known of their whereabouts or what exactly the military is doing to get them out. “The good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are, but we cannot tell you,” Badeh was quoted as saying. “But where they are held, can we go there with force? We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.”

CCTV COVERAGE OF MISSING NIGERIAN GIRLS

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 – an Islamist group that has shown a degree of ruthlessness in killing civilians. Since the girls were captured, at least 470 civilians have been killed by Boko Haram, which says it is fighting to establish an Islamic state in religiously mixed Nigeria, in various locations, according to a Reuters count.

Britain’s BBC reported on Monday that a deal was close to being agreed to rescue the girls in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners – a demand the group had made public – but that it was called off at the last minute. Over the weekend, Senate President David Mark, the country’s number three, ruled out doing a deal with Boko Haram. “This government cannot negotiate with criminals and … will not exchange people for criminals. A criminal will be treated like a criminal,” he was quoted by local media as saying.

Report compiled with information from Reuters.