The release of a video showing some of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted more than two years ago is being greeted with a mixture of joy and despair among the girls’ parents.
Bukky Shonibare, the founder of Girl Child Africa, says several parents were able to spot their daughters in the video released Sunday on Twitter.
But their happiness is mixed with mourning knowing that their girls remain imprisoned by rebel fighters, more than two years after being stolen away.
“Some of the parents who were able to see the video are very happy to at least know that their children are alive. This is a video that is coming out 853 days after the abduction,” Shonibare told CTV News Channel from Abuja, Nigeria Monday.
But the video shows only 50 girls, while 218 girls remain missing.
For the parents who did not spot their daughters in this newest video, they are left wondering if their daughters are still alive, she said.
The video features one young woman, dressed in an abaya, telling the camera that some of her kidnapped classmates have died in airstrikes by the Nigerian Air Force. She also says that 40 have been "married" to fighters.
She begs for help and urges the Nigerian government to release imprisoned Boko Haram fighters so that she and her fellow students can be freed in exchange.
"Oh you, my people and our parents, you just have to please come to our rescue: We are suffering here, the aircraft have come to bombard us and killed many of us. Some are wounded. Every day we are in pains and suffering, so are our babies ... No one cares for us.
"Please go and beg the government of Nigeria to release the members of our abductors so that they too can free us to let us come home."
The video goes on to show bodies of some of the girls who she says were killed in an alleged air raid, including that one girl whose eyes flicker open briefly.
Shonibare says watching the video was hard for some of the abducted girls’ parents.
“Some parents saw their dead children on the floor and some parents did not see their children in that video,” she said.
All of the girls were abducted from a remote school near Chibok, in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014. The abduction brought Boko Haram to the world's attention and touched off the ”Bring Back Our Girls” social media campaign.
Shonibare says for a long time, there was doubt the girls were even still alive, but the released of a video over three months ago offered “proof of life” that at least some were alive.
“Now, with this one, with 50 of the girls in the video, it proves… that the girls are alive they are within the shelter of Nigeria, and that they are rescuable,” Shonibare said, adding that Nigerian authorities are acting on local intelligence to try to find the girls.
Nigeria has witnessed more than seven years of fighting that has left more than 20,000 people dead and driven 2.2 million people from their homes.
Aid workers say half a million people are starving in the areas that Boko Haram has abandoned and there has been a resurgence of polio in some of areas as well.
With reports from The Associated Press
