'I abducted your girls, I will sell them': Fears grow for missing Nigerian schoolgirls

AN ISLAMIST kidnapper who abducted over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls has vowed to sell them off as child brides and slaves.

        

Abubakar Shekau has claimed that he will find buyers for the girls he kidnapped on April 14 after raiding a school in northern Nigeria. Describing the girls as "slaves", he said: "I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah." Some of the 223 missing children may already have been sold with reports suggesting they had been purchased as brides in Chad and Cameroon, which border Nigeria. Shekau's speech is the first time Boko Haram, the Nigerian insurgent organisation, has admitted responsibility for the crime. The group's name means "Western education is sinful" and they regularly target civilians across Nigeria. The country's president Goodluck Jonathan has said he will do everything possible to save the girls. "We promise that anywhere the girls are, we will surely get them out," he said in a radio address. Mr Jonathan has requested help from Great Britain and the United States to help fight the activities of the Islamic terror group.