Boko Haram Sends Chibok Girls to War front

In a disturbing look at the abuses endured by the 219 Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group; a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the girls have been forced to go to the front line to help fight the Nigerian military.

The report of the New York based group issued Monday said that the victims are also being forced to convert to Islam and marry their captors, being raped and made to cook, clean, carry ammunition and looted goods.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek cannot independently confirm the development but Human Rights Watch report came as three girls who escaped Boko Haram after being sbducted in April told their story to BBC Hausa.

The 219 girls seized in the town of Chibok in Borno state  in a mass kidnapping in April were among at least 500 girls and women, mainly Christians, who had been abducted since the beginning of last year by the Boko Haram.

An image from a video released in May by the Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram purportedly showed kidnapped girls from the Chibok region.

According to the rights organization, more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in the Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria since 2009. More than half of the killings have occurred since early 2013.

The kidnapping of the Chibok girls sparked a Twitter hashtag, “Bring Back Our Girls,” and a global campaign to pressure Nigeria’s government to do more to get the girls released.

The negotiations have been aimed at securing the release of the Chibok girls but not hundreds of others in captivity. The mass kidnappings began in 2013, according to Human Rights Watch, but the abduction of the Chibok girls, gathered at a school for exams, was the largest single kidnapping.

The militants initially raided the school in search of a brick-making machine, according to the report, only to find there were hundreds of girls who were easy prey after the only guard on duty fled into the night.