MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — With a malevolent laugh, the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremists told the world that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have been converted to Islam and married off, dashing hopes for their freedom.
“If you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you … to die from grief,” Abubakar Shekau said, addressing the parents of the girls and young women kidnapped from a boarding school more than six months ago.
In a video released late Friday night, the Boko Haram leader also denied there was a cease-fire with the Nigerian government and threatened to kill an unidentified German hostage.
“Don’t you know we are still holding your German hostage (who is) always crying,” he said. “If we want, we will hack him or slaughter him or shoot him.”
A German development worker was kidnapped at gunpoint in Gombi, a town in northeast Nigeria, in July. Police reported he was ambushed as he drove to work.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters last week in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, that he had no new information about a German abductee.
In the video, Shekau wears a camouflage tunic and pants, and the black and white flag of al-Qaeda is by his side. He is flanked by masked and armed fighters standing in front of four military pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns. Boko Haram has looted many weapons and vehicles, including armored cars from Nigeria’s military.
The military has several times claimed to have killed Shekau and said any new videos are made by a look-alike. But the United States has not removed a $7 million ransom on the head of the extremist leader.
On Oct. 17, Nigeria’s military chief, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, announced that Boko Haram had agreed to a cease-fire to end a 5-year insurgency in which thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been driven from homes in northeast Nigeria. Government officials had said they expected the Chibok girls to be released any day.
In the video, Shekau denied that he had agreed to any truce and said he was dedicated to fighting and dying a martyr’s death to guarantee him a place in paradise.
The fighting and abductions have continued. Boko Haram seized the commercial center of Mubi last week, and fighting raged Friday around nearby Vimtin, the village where Badeh was born.
The only news of the girls has come from Shekau, who appeared to dash hopes that they would be released in exchange for detained Boko Haram fighters.
“The issue of the girls is long forgotten because I have long ago married them off,” Shekau said.
About 276 girls and young women were kidnapped April 15 from a boarding school in the remote town of Chibok. Dozens escaped on their own, but 219 remain missing.
A video in May showed some of the kidnapped girls, including two explaining why they had converted to Islam. Unconfirmed reports have indicated the girls have been divided into groups and that some have been carried across borders, into Cameroon and Chad.
