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| Screengrab from video obtained by AFP of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claiming responsibility for abducting the schoolgirls. Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty Images |
The leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has said that more than 270 schoolgirls snatched from their dormitories were "slaves" whom he planned to sell in the market.
"I abducted your girls," a man claiming to be Abubakar Shekau, the group's leader, said in a video seen by the Guardian. "I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will sell them off and marry them off. There is a market for selling humans.
"Women are slaves. I want to reassure my Muslim brothers that Allah says slaves are permitted in Islam," he added, in an apparent reference to an ancient tradition of enslaving women captured during jihad, or holy war.
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| Protesters call for the release of the missing schoolgirls at the state government house, in Lagos, Nigeria. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images |
Speaking in northern Nigeria's Hausa language during a rambling hour-long speech, he threatened further attacks on schools and warned the international community not to get involved in Nigeria. Shekau has previously called western education "a plot against Islam" and urged his fighters to kill students and teachers. "I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine," he said at another point in the video.
The chilling message came as police questioned 'Gbenga Sesan – the activist behind the popular Twitter campaign #BringBackOurGirls – and two women who helped organise protests calling for the government to do more to rescue the girls. more
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