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BOKO HARAM TODAY claimed the abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in northern Nigeria that has triggered international outrage, threatening to sell them as “slaves”.
“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 boarding school in Chibok, Borno state, three weeks ago.
Fifty-three of the girls managed to escape from the militants but 223 were still being held, state police said last Friday.
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration have been under mounting pressure to act since gunmen stormed the girls’ school on 14 April, forcing them from their dormitories onto truck and driving them into the bush.
Jonathan pledged in his first public comments on the abduction on Sunday evening that the government would find the girls and return them to their families.
“This is a trying time for this country… it is painful,” he said, adding that he had sought help from foreign powers, including the United States, to help Nigeria tackle its security challenges.
In the latest video, Shekau is seen dressed in combat fatigues standing in front of an armoured personnel carrier and two pick-up trucks mounted with sub-machine guns.
Six armed men stand beside him with their faces covered.
The images are blurry at times but zoom in to Shekau, who speaks in the local Hausa language and Arabic, as well as English.
For the first 14 minutes, he takes a swipe at democracy, Western education, efforts for Muslims and Christians to live in peace and rails against non-believers in Islam.
I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married.
“I will repeat this: Western education should fold up. I abducted your girls.”
“I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, claiming his group was holding the girls as “slaves”.
“I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine,” he said elsewhere in the video.
Unconfirmed reports from local leaders in Chibok suggested that the girls had been taken across Nigeria’s borders with Chad and Cameroon and sold as brides for as little as $12.
Boko Haram has been waging an increasingly deadly insurgency in Nigeria’s north that has claimed more than 1,500 lives this year alone.
The violence has largely been confined to three northeastern states – Borno, Yobe and Adamawa – which have been under a state of emergency since May last year.
Previous attacks have targeted government offices and military installations as well as Christian churches and schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum.
But two car bomb attacks that killed more than 90 in the same suburb of the capital Abuja in three weeks have raised fears that the Islamists are changing tactics and targets.
On Friday, the United States issued a security warning to its citizens in Nigeria to avoid two Sheraton hotels in the financial capital, Lagos, because of an unspecified threat.
Unprecedented security has been put in place for the regional meeting of the World Economic Forum, which takes place in Abuja from Wednesday to Friday.
International attention on the plight of the missing girls was initially slow but has grown quickly in recent days, in part because of a social media campaign – #bringbackourgirls.
US Secretary of State John Kerry vowed Saturday that Washington would do “everything possible” to help Nigeria deal with Boko Haram militants and bring the children home.
Have to feel for the retailers in Cork city, being flooded on the last day of retail before lockdown for 6 weeks, now being left with potentially damaged stock and stores.
@LangerDan: sounds like a good time to be closed getting compensation from government
Don’t worry lads the Greens have it sorted, pay the extra bit of tax on the petrol and the sea level will be back down to normal next year
@Quiet Goer: river channels should have been dredged years ago.
@Quiet Goer: yeah blame the people who pointed this scenario out years ago and offered solutions which were widely ignored, but sure whatever helps you deal with it
@Dave Barrett: Tell that you the ineffective City Council who are quick to tax retailers but unable or unwilling to tackle the problem that can shut down them down . We need people with passion for their city to become city councillors
@Dave Barrett: how will dredging a river stop the sea from flooding? This flood is because of a storm causing higher than normal tides, nothing to do with the Lee.
@Mary Mc Carthy: city council have been trying to commence the floor relief project for years, but certain groups are constantly bringing it to judicial review in an attempt to stop it. Had the project been allowed to go ahead day one, we would not be having this conversation
@Aaron: You and I are not having a conversation! . I was born and reared in this city and expressing my views .
@Frank Carty: it has everything to do with the River and the failure of successive councils and politicians to find a workable solution to this problem
@Mary Mc Carthy: thats sea water thats flooding cork, not river water.
@Mary Mc Carthy: and I as a fellow citizen of Cork City are telling you that your view that this is all the council’s fault is an unfair one at best, as they have been trying to install a flood defence scheme for years, but Save Cork City won’t have it. However as you say, “we are not having a conversation”
@Dave Barrett:
It has nothing to do with dredging the river.
The river is not in flood
It was the the tide – half meter higher due to low pressure and easterly wind.
@Dave Barrett: Dredging the river in Cork City would have absolutely no impact on flooding. It is a tidal river. Any extra depth in the riverbed would be immediately filled with river/sea water. You would need to dredge the Atlantic Ocean.
Traders needed this like a hole in the head. Like the health services this part of our infrastructure should have been dealt with long ago.
@Carlin Ite: They’ve been talking about putting in barriers since I was little, that’s a long time ago and still nothing’s done. Poor Cork.
@Rachel O’ Meara: In fairness, nothing is being done because of objection after objection to the plans to actually do something. The “Save Cork” group has gone to the European Commission now while they continue to drag this out. Meanwhile businesses continue to flood…
@Gavin Conran: talk about an ironic name.. allowing flooding like this to happen can hardly be described as saving cork,like.
@Gavin Conran: correct and right, so easy to blame the council
Tidal Barrier
@Nicholas O’Halloran: It’s bizarre that people are talking about building a light rail system at an estimated cost of €1,000,000,000 but we’re told we can’t afford €140,000,000 for a tidal barrier we clearly need more urgently.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: Its not a money issue – the flood defense plan was costed at about 150,000,000..which continues to be delayed due to objections.
@Gavin Conran: Unfortunately a project being costed in this country means nothing. Our civil servants do not have the skill set to draw up a contract to protect the taxpayer the taxpayer from unscrupulous developers. The last major infrastructure project near me was the Tralee bypass costed at €30million and finally cost €76million excluding vat. the contractor involved has history in inflating project costs. Dont get me started on the likes of the Childrens hospital.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: 140k tidal barrier…….. Sounds about right
@Nicholas O’Halloran: tidal barrier would have only partially mitigated this flood. As it was caused by both tide and rain a tidal barrier would have reduced the tidal portion but trapped the excess water from the rain so may not have had a great affect. Sorting the quay walls mitigates again both tidal and rainfall flooding
@Aaron: You missed three zeros, he said 140m (140’000’000) not 140k (140’000).
@Diarmuid Hunt: apologies, they was my typo, meant m not k. However I stand by my point, a workable tidal barrier for 140m is comparable to newbuild 6 bed detached in Blackrock for 50k……dreamland
Cork city has big problems with drainage as the lower parts are built on bog land
@Colonel kurtz: and it’s an island
@King B: And what an island?! Best island on this island!
@Colonel kurtz: you really need to put in a contingency when the name of your town is the Irish for swamp. Even so, there really needs to be a serious effort to reduce flooding, to the point of a tidal barrier over the lynch tunnel. This will get worse, and the loss to the the entire trading is something not faced in other cities.
@King B: Yes, built on a series of islands all paved over to make one larger one
@Rachel O’ Meara: You’re not wrong :)
@Rachel O’ Meara: the Venice of Ireland
@King B: The center of Cork is built on about 13 islands.
Drove in for work this morning and it was getting bad around 7.30am. Be careful on the Quays near Paul Street carpark
@Sean Mullen: bad was I was working in Michael Guiney’s on Oliver Plunkett Streer doing security. The whole city flooded I just remember the tidal surge coming up OPS closing the store doors few minutes later we were stuffing the gaps in the door with duvets to stop the water. Emergency services told us to move upstairs and wait to be rescued by boat. That was bad
@Tom Harpur Photography: Bad…pah…I tell you about bad . . it was the year
As someone from Cork this city has been flooding since ‘Noah was a boy ‘ as we say in Cork . Successive city councils and their engineers have been unable or unwilling to tackle the problem . Instead they waste their time giving planning permission to ugly big buildings that have and will become eye sores in a once beautiful city .They have filed this city and its inhabitants
@Mary Mc Carthy: typo * failed *
Sympathy for traders in downtown Cork. However, Cork ( Corcaigh) is built on a series of islands and the name means “Marsh”. When I lived ther, I remember the river coming up through the drains in Oliver Plunkett Street and flooded Grand Parade. Cork has a mild but very damp climate. Always had flood issues.
Don’t get it twisted Dubs, we are still the real capital, this is but a set back, we still have the title.
@Aaron: langers built a city on a flood plain and then complain about flooding!
Death, taxes, and someone making a greens tax related joke on any article on this website that has to do with global warming.
The tidal barrier is the only future for cork. Get that built or suffer this time and time again
Anyone have any good newz
They’re always getting flooded. I am guessing the council have tried and tried again and have failed to prevent this?
The insurance companies should be covering for this but if they are able to refuse at least allow the business to show they’ve done all they can to prevent the flooding.
I’ve seen a few doors with flood barriers in front of them so hopefully they’ve worked.
Did cork centre not flood before or this only a recent thing in the last 20 years?
@cill123: cork has been flooding as long anyone can remember, cork is tidal and a southerly wind with a tidal surge causes flooding in the city centre
@cill123: there’s a pub in the city center on Patricks Street with steps down to where you tie up your boat. Arguably, or at least one of, Cork’s oldest pub. The river used to flow along Patricks Street back in the day.
@Kieran Brennan: yes and grand parade and south mall and the Coal Quay.
I’m surprised it doesn’t just float away.
@Padraic McDonagh: I wish it would!
@Ciaran Daly: slow clap for that distasteful comment. Businesses under the cosh big time after an economically catastrophic year and when the city floods, you think it’s clever to say “I wish it would float away”?
Stay classy Ciaran.
@Padraic McDonagh: Yes cork tends to float!!!
Incredible how the city has never been flooded before. They might want to start thinking about flood prevention in the next few years…..on the off chance it ever happens again.
Level 5 caused the flood. We are okay at level 4.
@biggybald: Oops it’s already in related reads. My apologies Sean.
The Taoiseach as have many Cork Politicians before him , have been aware of the problems causing the flooding long before today . They , as have the City Councillors , betrayed the people and the city they are supposed to represent by not finding a solution to this problem . Nobody wants platitudes now . It’s past time they do the job they were elected for .
It’s God’s way of telling us what a badly run country we have and how soft the people of Ireland have become
Meehall is dogged with bad luck ever since he pulled the short straw for temporary Taoiseach.
Its true that your Generals not only need to be good, but lucky as well.
Wish him better fortune, cos we need it as well.
have your say