Boko Haram releases purported video of Chibok girls

The Nigerian government has said it is
in contact with Boko Haram after the
armed group released a new video
purporting to show the schoolgirls it
kidnapped more than two years ago, and
offering to trade the captives in return
for the release of its jailed fighters.
Boko Haram released the video on
Sunday showing dozens of the 276
students they seized from the
Government Girls Secondary School in
Chibok on the night of April 14, 2014.
Fifty-seven managed to escape in the
immediate aftermath of the mass
abduction.
"They should know that their children
are still in our hands," a Boko Haram
fighter, holding an assault rifle and his
head covered by a turban, says in the
video, which was posted on YouTube.
The masked fighter delivers his demands
standing in front of dozens of young
women.
"The Nigerian government has issued a
statement saying they are on top of the
situation. What they mean by that is they
are in touch with people purported to be
behind that video,"  Aljezeera 

About 2,000 girls and boys have been
abducted by Boko Haram since 2014,
with many used as sex slaves, fighters,
and even suicide bombers, according to
Amnesty International, the London-
based human rights organisation.
In recent months, Boko Haram has
increasingly used suicide and bomb
attacks as the Nigerian military pushes
the group out of territories they once
controlled.
President Muhammadu Buhari has
declared Boko Haram "technically"
defeated, and said success in the
campaign would be measured on the
return of the Chibok girls and other
abductees.
“There have been a lot of incursions
from reports that we have seen, of our
military making incursions successfully
into areas hitherto held by the
insurgents," Mike Omeri, former head of
the government' s Nigerian Information
Centre, told Al Jazeera.