Hope Fades for Chibok Girls' Release After Boko Haram 'Truce' Breached

 

 AFOLABI SOTUNDE / Reuters 

Campaigners from "#Bring Back Our Girls" march during a rally calling for the release of the Abuja school girls who were abducted by Boko Haram militants, in Abuja October 17, 2014.

A wave of violence hours after Nigeria's government announced a truce with Boko Haram raised doubt on Sunday about whether more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militants will really be released, deflating the new hopes of their parents.

Nigeria's armed forces chief Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh announced the ceasefire on Friday to enable the release of the girls, who were abducted from the remote northeastern village of Chibok in April.

But Boko Haram has not confirmed the truce and there have been at least five attacks since — blamed by security sources on the insurgents — that have killed dozens. Talks were scheduled to continue in neighboring Chad on Monday.

"We were jubilating. We had every reason to be happy ... but since then the ceasefire has been broken in quite a number of places already," Lawan Abana, a parent of the one of the missing girls, told Reuters by telephone.

He added that there were doubts about the credentials of the reported Boko Haram negotiator Danladi Ahmadu, who was unheard of before. "Can we trust him that he can deliver on this promise of releasing the girls when he has not delivered on the promise of the ceasefire?" Abana said.

The government says the attacks may not have been Boko Haram but one of several criminal groups exploiting the chaos of its insurgency. Analysts point out that Boko Haram is anyway heavily factionalized, so what matters is whether the faction the government is talking to has control over the girls' fate. 

"We can confirm that there have been contacts between the government and representatives of Boko Haram," the National Information Center statement stated. "The discussions are essentially in relation to the general insecurity in the Northeast and also the need to rescue all captives of the terrorists, including the students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok. … From the discussions, they indicated their desire for and willingness to discuss and resolve all associated issues. They also assured that the schoolgirls and all other people in their captivity are all alive and well."

Experts in both the U.S. and Nigeria noted that there was no official confirmation of a cease-fire from Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group which now controls an area approximately the size of Maryland and continue to threaten Maiduguri, a city of 1 million in the country's northeast.

Boko Haram experts in Nigeria also questioned the credibility of the man whom Badeh said had acted as the group's envoy in the cease-fire negotiations, which purportedly took place in neighboring Chad.

"I have never heard of such a man and if Boko Haram wanted to declare a cease-fire it would come from the group's leader Abubakar Shekau," said Shehu Sani, a Boko Haram expert who has negotiated with the group before on behalf of the government.

U.S. officials note that Shekau has previously stated that his group has not negotiated with the Nigerian government. When the Nigerian government has claimed to have made progress in talks, the usual response has been a Boko Haram attack, they said.

One official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity, also noted that there has been no recent indication from Boko Haram that it would be willing to discuss releasing the abducted schoolgirls in exchange for the government freeing members of the group it has imprisoned, as it did immediately after the girls’ kidnapping on April 14. 

Source- NBC NEWS