Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau vowed to sell hundreds of schoolgirls kidnapped in northern Nigeria three weeks ago, in a new video obtained on Monday by AFP.
"I abducted your girls," the Islamist group's leader Abubakar Shekau said in the 57-minute video obtained by AFP, referring to the 276 students kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Borno state, on April 14.
"I will sell them in the market, by Allah," he said, after reports that some of the 223 girls still missing may have been sold as brides across Nigeria's border with Chad and Cameroon for as little as $12.
Shekau added that the abduction had caused outrage "because we are holding people (as) slaves".
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Fifty-three of the girls managed to escape from the militants but 223 were still being held, state police said last Friday.
It comes as Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has vowed to ensure the release of 223 schoolgirls abducted by suspected Islamists, saying he's sought help from US President Barack Obama to overcome the nation's security challenges.
In a live broadcast on radio and television, Jonathan promised that they'll recover the missing girls wherever they are.
Besides the United States, Jonathan said that Nigeria has also approached other world powers, including France, Britain and China, for help on security issues.
Jonathan has come under mounting pressure since gunmen believed to be Boko Haram extremists stormed the girls' boarding school on April 14, forcing them from their dormitories onto trucks and driving them into the bush.
