The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has released a video purporting to show some of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.
Some 50 girls wearing headscarves are seen behind a Boko Haram militant who demands the release of fighters in return for freeing the girls.
The group seized 276 girls from their school in the northern town of Chibok; 219 are believed to still be held. This is the third video said to show the girls since they were captured, BBC reported.
The footage shows the militant, a gun slung over his shoulder, carrying out a staged interview with one of the girls, who calls herself Maida Yakubu and says she is from Chibok. The girl is prompted by her interviewer to urge the government to release imprisoned Boko Haram militants.
“What I can say is that our parents should take heart,” she says in the Kabaku language. “Talk to the government so that we can be allowed to go home.”
Another girl among those standing in the background can be seen with a baby. It is feared that many of the schoolgirls have been sexually abused and forced into “marriage” by their captors. The video also shows a separate scene with bodies on the ground, which the group suggests are those of girls killed by government airstrikes.
Boko Haram has waged a violent campaign for years in northern Nigeria and a faction of the group recently pledged loyalty to the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group. Thousands of people have been killed or captured by Boko Haram, whose name translates as “western education is forbidden”.
The girls were seized from their school on April 14, 2014, and the failure to bring about their release has caused international outrage.
The Nigerian government, which has sought help from the US and the UK to try to trace the girls, has been accused of not doing enough.
The video is the first such since CNN obtained footage in April purportedly showing 15 of them. In May, one of the girls was found by an army-backed vigilante group in the Sambisa Forest near the border with Cameroon.
