A little 15-year-old girl who was sent on suicide mission and was caught by security operatives has pleaded not to be killed as she revealed that she is one of the kidnapped Chibok girls.
A suspected suicide bomber intercepted in northern Cameroon Friday March 25 before she could blow herself up is claiming to be one of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in Chibok, Borno State in 2014, military and local government sources say.
It is alleged in the ongoing Boko Haram clearance operation, village vigilant group intercepted two female suicide bomber before they could blow themselves to death.
The two girls arrested in Cameroon Friday were carrying explosives and were stopped village vigilant group of Limani, in northern Cameroon that has been the target of frequent suicide bombings in recent months.
They were then handed over to Cameroonian soldiers belonging to a multi-national force set up to take on Boko Haram.
“One of them indeed declared that she is one of the Chibok hostages. She is around 15. We are now verifying, because on the Nigerian side they have the names and photos of these girls,” one of the members of the village vigilant group is quoted to have said.
“We need a few days to be able to confirm this information. We have to debrief all the men who were present and interrogate the two girls before we can say anything,” one of the military sources said.
In a high-profile attack that sparked a global outcry, Boko Haram militants raided the school in April 2014 while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks, though around 50 escaped shortly afterwards. Former president Goodluck Jonathan was criticised for his slow reaction to the Chibok abductions.
It was nearly a month before a fact-finding committee travelled to Chibok to establish whether the abduction actually happened and how many girls were missing.
Muhammadu Buhari, who defeated Jonathan in an election last year, ordered a new investigation into the kidnappings in January.
Joint operations between Nigeria and its neighbours Niger, Chad and Cameroon succeeded in driving Boko Haram from many of its strongholds in Nigeria last year.
However, as an 8,700-strong regional task force seeks to stamp them out once and for all, the Islamists have stepped up cross-border attacks and suicide bombings, many of them carried out by young girls.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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