Nigerian extremist leader admits to abducting girls

Heather Blockey/CORBIS

Nigerian extremist leader admits to abducting girls
(Image credit: Heather Blockey/CORBIS)

A leader of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has released a video admitting to the capture of 276 Nigerian girls last month.

In the video, Abubakar Shekau says that he abducted the girls and plans to "sell them on the market, by Allah." Boko Haram, which roughly translates to "Western education is forbidden," has attacked various targets in northern Nigeria for years, but April's kidnapping was "its biggest attack yet," Time reports.

Yesterday, President Goodluck Jonathan promised to find the girls and return them to their homes. "Wherever these girls are, we'll get them out," he said in a TV broadcast. This weekend, thousands of people across the globe joined in the campaign to bring the girls home, sending tweets with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime," John Kerry said at a press conference Saturday. "We will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes and to hold the perpetrators to justice."

Explore More

Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.