Reports of a potential sighting of over 50 of the abducted school girls in the Central African Republic swept through intelligence channels over the weekend.
The girls who were abducted on April 14th from a Secondary School in Chibok were reported to have been moved to neighbouring countries and now eyewitnesses claim to have seen armed men conveying 50 petrified girls in buses in Birao, Central African Republic.
A French newspaper, Jeune Afrique reported, “The Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram have passed through the northern CAR, escorted by armed men. Based on several testimonies of inhabitants, the women arrived Wednesday, April 30 aboard trucks.
“They were guarded by heavily armed men, who spoke English, and also members of the former (CAR) rebel Seleka.”
Séléka is an alliance of rebel militia factions that overthrew the Central African Republic government on March 24, 2013.
The report continued, “According to a local notable, based on several testimonies of inhabitants, fifty young English women arrived Wednesday, April 30 aboard a truck Birao small town in north-end of the CAR. Information to be confirmed.
“They were supervised by heavily armed men who spoke English and also members of the former Rebellion Seleka. According to our source, close to the anti-Balaka, the convoy of two trucks and a pickup, was previously seen at Tiroungoulou (about 170 kilometers southwest of Birao) and perhaps Chad came. Information contradicted in the afternoon by the Embassy of Chad in Paris.
“Upon arrival, some were frightened, cried and were violently rebuked in English,” says our source. Adolescents and their guardians were then housed several days in a house Birao whose inhabitants could not approach. The group reportedly left the scene on the night of Sunday to Monday, May 5th without a trace.
“Nigerian authorities, now backed by experts from several Western countries are still without news of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by gunmen in their establishment Chibok (northeast Nigeria) on the night of April 14 Islamists. Abubakar Shekau, leader of the terrorist organization Boko Haram, has claimed responsibility in a video of the kidnapping and said that the girls would be sold and enslaved.”