US and UK surveillance discovered whereabouts of
kidnapped schoolgirls Spotted around 80 of the
276 Nigerian girls seized by Boko Haram in 2014
Didn't do anything about it as rescue attempt was
considered too 'high risk' Videos have emerged
showing the girls are being brutally raped
regularly.
The US and British governments knew where at
least 80 of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko
Haram were but failed to launch a rescue mission,
it has been revealed.
Terrorists stormed a secondary boarding school in
the remote town of Chibok in Borno state, northern
Nigeria in April 2014, and seized 276 girls who
were preparing for end-of-year exams.
Although 57 of the girls managed to escape the
rest have remained missing and have not been
heard from or seen since apart from in May that
year, when 130 of them appeared in a Boko Haram
video wearing hijabs and reciting the Koran.
Dr Andrew Pocock, the former British high
commissioner to Nigeria, has now revealed that a
large group of the missing girls were spotted by
British and American surveillance officials shortly
after their disappearance, but experts felt nothing
could be done.
He told The Sunday Times that Western
governments felt 'powerless' to help as any rescue
attempt would have been too high risk - with Boko
Haram terrorists using the girls as human shields.
Dr Pocock said: 'A couple of months after the
kidnapping, fly-bys and an American eye in the sky
spotted a group of up to 80 girls in a particular
spot in the Sambisa forest, around a very large
tree, called locally the Tree of Life, along with
evidence of vehicular movement and a large
encampment.'
He said the girls were there for at least four weeks
but authorities were 'powerless' to intervene - and
the Nigerian government did not ask for help
anyway.
He said: 'A land-based attack would have been
seen coming miles away and the girls killed, an
air-based rescue, such as flying in helicopters or
Hercules, would have required large numbers and
meant a significant risk to the rescuers and even
more so to the girls.'
He added: 'You might have rescued a few but
many would have been killed. My personal fear
was always about the girls not in that encampment
— 80 were there, but 250 were taken, so the bulk
were not there. What would have happened to
them? You were damned if you do and damned if
you don't.'
In an investigation by Christina Lamb for the
Sunday Times Magazine, Dr Pocock said the
information was passed to the Nigerians but they
made no request for help.
The Magazine has also seen brutal rape videos
which show schoolgirls are being used as sex
slaves by the terrorists.
Ms Lamb reports: 'They film schoolgirls being
raped over and over again until their scream
become silent Os.'
Some of the girls who managed to escape told Ms
Lamb they were kept in 'women's prisons' where
they were taught about Islam. Boko Haram fighters
would visit and pick their wives.
The girls were powerless to resist as even then the
men would be heavily armed. They were shown
videos of people being raped, tortured and killed as
a threat of what would happen to them if they tried
to run away.
Dr Stephen Davis, a former canon at Coventy
Cathedral who has spent several years attempting
to negotiate with the terror group said Boko Haram
'make Isis look like playtime' and said it is 'beyond
belief' that the authorities both in Nigeria and the
West do not know where the schoolgirls are.
He insists the locations of the camps where the
girls are being kept are well known and can even
be seen on Google maps. He added: 'How many
girls have to be raped and abducted before the
West will do anything?'
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau previously
claimed that all the girls, some of whom were
Christian, had converted to Islam and been
'married off'.
The mass abduction brought the brutality of the
Islamist insurgency to worldwide attention and
prompted the viral social media campaign
#BringBackOurGirls.
Boko Haram violence has left at least 17,000 dead
and forced more than 2.6 million from their homes
since 2009. The Global Terrorism Index ranks the
group as the word's deadliest terror organisation.
The group, now officially allied to the Islamic State
fighters who control much of Iraq and Syria, has
responded with suicide bombings and hit and run
attacks against civilians.
In recent months the insurgents have turned away
from direct confrontation with the military in favour
of suicide attacks, increasingly carried out by
women and girls - raising fears that they are
kidnap victims,
Just last week two female suicide bombers killed
at least 24 worshippers and wounded 18 in an
attack during dawn prayers Wednesday on a
mosque on the outskirts of the northeast Nigerian
city of Maiduguri, officials said from the birthplace
of Boko Haram.
One bomber blew up inside the mosque and the
second waited outside to detonate as survivors
tried to escape, said coordinator Abba Aji of the
civilian self-defense Vigilante Group.
The mosque is on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the
city that is the military command center of the war
against Boko Haram.
Several suicide bombers have exploded recently at
roadblocks leading into the city, preventing
attackers from reaching crowded areas.

www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/western-govts-know-whereabouts-girls-kidnapped-boko-haram/

This not really surprising. When our then president was saying "The Americans will know", we all thought he didn't know what he was talking about. What I didn't like about this story is the fact that Nigeria didn't ask for help and the west taking matters into their hands would have been seen as a breach of our sovereignty.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3501274/Western-Governments-KNEW-whereabouts-girls-kidnapped-Boko-Haram.html

and then?