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• Another such video appeared in July -FG
THREE female members of the Chibok Community have identified some of the missing girls in the video released by CNN as the girls abducted two years ago.
Rifkatu Ayuba and Mary Ishaya said they recognised their daughters, Saratu and Hauwa, in the video, while a third mother, Yana Galang, identified five of the missing girls.
“The girls were looking very, very well,” Galang said in a telephone interview with Reuters after a screening of the video in Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria.
“I saw the girls and for sure they are Chibok girls” she said, adding that “I recognise some of them because we are from the same area”.
She also noted that the girls “were not like this” two years ago, as “they have changed”.
“We are all well,” one of the girls said in the video. Two mothers and 16 fathers of the girls have died since the mass abduction, some of them victims of Boko Haram attacks.
Others died from illnesses blamed on stress, according to Yakubu Nkeki, Head of a Support Group and uncle of two abducted girls.
Meanwhile, Information Minister Lai Mohammed has said the Federal Government has reservations about the new video apparently showing the Chibok girls alive. He told the BBC’s Focus on Africa radio programme that another such video had appeared last July but when officials had tried to pursue the matter, it led nowhere.
“It is strange that it is at a time when we have recorded such a comprehensive success against the insurgency that some groups are now coming up with these videos,” the minister said.
Last week another group said they would release 10 of the girls for $1m euro (£795,000) and the government had to be careful they were not being exploited, he said. “Having said that we are ready to explore all avenues that will lead to the release of these girls.”
