LAGOS, Nigeria — A new video from Nigeria’s Boko Haram purports to show schoolgirls, covered in hijab and reciting prayers in Arabic, who are being held captive by the Islamic extremists.
The girls are seated on the ground, barefoot, the first video evidence of them since more than 300 were kidnapped from a northeastern school in the predawn hours of April 15 — four weeks ago.
Some appear fearful, others desolate, as two are called to the front and questioned by an unseen man.
“Why have you become a Muslim?” the man asks one.
“The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path,” the girl says, nervously turning her body from side to side, her eyes darting off to the side. “We should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us.”
She looks to be in her early teens. She says her real name has been changed to Halima since she converted from Christianity to Islam. Like the other girls, she is wearing a hijab, a piece of cloth that covers whole body and the back of head but not the face.
A second girl, who looks in her mid-teens, was asked if the girls had been ill-treated in any way. She denied it, saying they experienced no harassment “except righteousness.”
Families have said most girls abducted are Christians.
In Chibok, the town from which they were stolen, parents were turning on a generator, hoping they can watch the video and identify their daughters, said one of the town’s civil leaders, Pogu Bitrus.
“There’s an atmosphere of hope, hope that these girls are alive, whether they have been forced to convert to Islam or not,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. “We want to be able to say ’These are our girls.”’
