The Boko Haram sect said on Monday it carried out the abduction of over 200 female students of Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, last month.
The abduction has triggered growing domestic and international outrage and demands for an immediate rescue mission.
“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.
Abubakar Shekau: Boko Haram leader
Fifty-three of the girls managed to escape from the militants but 223 were still being held, state police said last Friday.
Shekau in the video also vowed to sell the girls, also confirming stories that the girls had been sold as brides to militants at $12 each.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” he said.
Shekau added that the abduction had caused outrage “because we are holding people as slaves”.