(CNN) — A man claiming to be Boko Haram’s leader says he’ll sell the more than 200 girls that his group abducted from a Nigerian school last month.
“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” a man claiming to be Abubakar Shekau says in a video, according to a CNN translation from Hausa. “There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women.”
Militants seized about 230 girls in the dead of the night at a high school in the nation’s far northeast, a hotbed for Islamist group Boko Haram.
Armed men herded the girls out of bed and forced them into trucks on April 16 in the town of Chibok. The convoy of trucks then disappeared into the dense forest bordering Cameroon.
Boko Haram’s name translates to “Western education is a sin” in the local language.
The group especially opposes the education of women. Under its version of Sharia law, women should be at home raising children and looking after their husbands, not at school learning to read and write.
Rights groups say the militants kidnap girls to perform chores and sexual services.
Armed men herded the girls out of bed and forced them into trucks on April 16 in the town of Chibok. The convoy of trucks then disappeared into the dense forest bordering Cameroon.
Roughly 200 girls remain missing, although the authorities and parents differ on the number.
