234 girls kidnapped and abducted from school ...still missing..

[HipChick]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/nigerian-schoolgirls-ignoring-their-fate-at-our-peril-20140430-zr1lz.html

It has been two weeks since the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram kidnapped up to 191 teenage girls, holding them hostage with total impunity in the Sambisa Forest.

The girls, aged mostly between 16 and 18, haven't been heard from since April 14, the night before their final exam at the Government Girls Secondary School in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Chibok when they woke to the sound of gunmen bashing in windows and setting fire to their classrooms. Within hours, 234 of them were herded into trucks headed for the jungle. As many as 43 managed to escape. Some swung down from trucks in the slow-moving convoy; others ran off when they reached the forest.

The fate of the rest remains unclear. Some of the girls may have been taken to neighbouring countries, the BBC reported on Wednesday, quoting a local leader who said gunmen had been seen crossing with the girls into Cameroon and Chad. Some of the girls had been forced to marry the militants, the leader, Pogo Bitrus, told the news service.

Girls' education campaigner Malala Yousafzai has told the international community not to forget about the girls. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today program, Malala said: "If we forget about these girls it means we are forgetting our own sister, our own people."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/nigerian-schoolgirls-ignoring-their-fate-at-our-peril-20140430-zr1lz.html#ixzz30NpmH914

[CJCRANE]

1. Where's the Nigerian version of Seal Team 6? nt

[HipChick]

2. Botched operation....parents are taking matters into their own hands

[CJCRANE]

3. Not so much botched...they didn't even bother trying

from what I can tell.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Not every country spends "American" amounts of money for internal security...

Boko Haram wouldn't be able to run roughshod over so many rural, isolated communities otherwise...Also the latest reports suggest they have dispersed the girls in "safe" towns in neighboring countries...

The parents and family members of the missing have formed makeshift vigilante groups, but they obviously don't have the numbers, firepower, mobility or training to make a difference...

[frazzled]

4. Horrific /nt

[The Straight Story]

6. k&r(nt)

[The Straight Story]

7. Reports: Abducted girls married to Nigerian rebels

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Islamic extremist abductors, a civic organization reported Wednesday.

At the same time, the Boko Haram terrorist network is negotiating over the students' fate and is demanding an unspecified ransom for their release, a Borno state community leader told The Associated Press.

He said the Wednesday night message from the abductors also claimed that two of the girls have died from snake bites.

The message was sent to a member of a presidential committee mandated last year to mediate a ceasefire with the Islamic extremists, said the civic leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the talks.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/reports-abducted-girls-forced-marry-extremists