Boko Haram leader denies ceasefire deal, says 200 abducted girls married off
Nigerian officials announced two weeks ago that they had struck a deal with the Islamist terror group.
The deal, the government said, included the release of more than 200 girls whose kidnapping at a boarding school in the nation's north stunned the world.
In a video released Saturday, the Islamist group's notorious leader fired off a series of denials.
"Don't you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam?" Abubakar Shekau said. "They have now memorized two chapters of the Quran."
Shekau slammed reports of their planned release.
"We married them off. They are in their marital homes," he said, chuckling.
The group's leader also denied knowing the negotiator with whom the government claimed it worked out a deal, saying he does not represent Boko Haram.
"We will not spare him and will slaughter him if we get him," he said of the negotiator.
It wasn't clear when the video was made.
Mike Omeri, coordinator of Nigeria's National Information Centre, said on Saturday that these assertions contradict those made in conversations in which the Nigerian government has been involved.
"We've heard about the video, and we can say the road to peace is bumpy -- and you cannot expect otherwise," Omeri said. "Nigeria has been fighting a war, and wars don't end overnight."
Nigerian officials met with Boko Haram in Chad twice during talks mediated by Chadian President Idriss Deby, according to the aide.
The ceasefire deal announced October 17 followed a month of negotiations with representatives of the group, said Hassan Tukur, an aide to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. After the deal was announced, the aide said final negotiations on the girls' release would be completed at a meeting a week later in Chad.
That day passed without any signs of the girls.
source: cnn
No comments