MAILONLINE UK REPORT: 100 Of Girls Abducted From Nigerian School In Night 'Have Been Sold To Islamic Militants As Wives For £8 Each'

Hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped two weeks again are being sold to as wives to Islamic militants for as little as £8 each, it has been claimed.
The teenagers were abducted from their secondary school, in Chibok, in the middle of the night by armed men from Boko Haram and are believed to have smuggled across the borders to Cameroon and Chad Republic.  
Some of them have been forced to marry against their will and are being used as servants and sex slaves, according to a community elder.

Pogo Bitrus told The Times the captors were selling the girls aged 16-18 into servitude by forcing them to marry other members of the extremist group.

'If these captors are trying to achieve a political point, I think the best thing is for us to try to make sure that they don’t succeed,' he said.

'But from all indications they are succeeding, due to inaction of government it is helping these people in achieving their objectives.'

He said that the girls had been ferried to Cameroon and Chad by canoe where prospective husbands were paying around 2,000 naira (£8) for a bride.

The girls were kidnapped on April 14 by gunmen who raided the dormitories taking the girls while they slept.

Initially officials said that about 85 girls had been taken. But it later emerged that as many as 234 were missing.

So far, none of the schoolgirls have been rescued. About 40 managed to escape the grips of their heavily armed captors - believed to members of a Jihad Islamist group.

Parents and other town residents have mounted a search in the Sambisa Forest, which borders Chibok town and is a known hideout for the militants.

The troubled country has also seen demonstrators protest against the closure of schools in Abuja. Police turned out firing live bullets, water cannons and spraying tear gas.

A man weeps as he joins parents of kidnapped school girls during a meeting with the Borno State governor in Chibok, Maiduguri, Borno State April 22.

They had no weapons and eventually were forced to turn back. 

Security sources have said they are in 'hot pursuit' of the abductors, but so far they have not rescued any of the kidnap victims

The girls' families and their supporters have now organised mass demonstrations across Nigeria in an attempt to force President Goodluck Jonathan to take more drastic action. 

Boko Haram has been abducting girls and young women in attacks on schools, villages and towns, but the latest mass kidnapping is unprecedented. 

The extremists use the young women as porters, cooks and sex slaves, according to Nigerian officials. 

Boko Haram has a history of abducting women, and there has been an estimated 10,000 deaths caused by the group since it was formed in 2002.

The group rejects western beliefs and its purpose is to establish a "pure" Islamic state ruled by sharia law.

Attacks: A heavy military presence in the Borno region of Nigeria did not prevent the kidnapping (file photo)

Attack: The militants struck Chibok, in northwestern Nigeria, last Tuesday