Western governments knew the whereabouts of 80 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram but failed to launch a rescue mission for them, Sunday Times of London has reported.

According to the report, videos of the girls have emerged where they were being used as sex slaves.

It stated that the United States and the United Kingdom’s surveillance discovered the location of the girls, but did not rescue them.

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 vidoe wearing hijab and reciting the Quran.

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 that 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.

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.”

Pocock said a large group of the missing girls were spotted by British and American surveillance officials shortly after their disappearance

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.’