Video purportedly shows Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram
A video released Sunday by Boko Haram purports to show some of the schoolgirls abducted by the terrorist organization from Chibok, Nigeria, in April of 2014. Of the 276 kidnapped teenagers, a few have managed to escape Boko Haram, but 215 are still missing two years later.
The video shows about 50 girls in headscarves and claims they will be released to their families in exchange for jailed Boko Haram fighters. "We are not happy living here," says one girl on camera. "I'm begging our parents to meet the government to release their people so that we can be released."
The clip also shows a masked gunman who says another 40 of the girls have been married to Boko Haram men, presumably by force. Many of the abducted teens were Christians, and Boko Haram mandates conversion to Islam as part of its quest for Islamic rule in Nigeria. The name "Boko Haram" translates to "Western education is forbidden."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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