Kidnapper of 223 Nigerian girls says he will sell them

“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah.” The leader of Islamist group Boko Haram said girls kidnapped from a boarding school in Nigeria three weeks ago will be sold into slavery. The video showed Boko Haram head Abubakar Shekau dressed in combat fatigues with six armed men, their faces covered. “I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married,” he said.  U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the video “does appear legitimate.” 53 of the students managed to escape from the militants but 223 were still being held. Under mounting pressure to act, Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan pledged Sunday the government would find the girls and return them to their families. International attention on the plight of the missing girls has grown quickly in recent days, in part because of a social media campaign – #bringbackourgirls that trended globally. The tweets mostly focused on the complaints of ineptitude in finding the girls. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in on Twitter: “Access to education is a basic right & an unconscionable reason to target innocent girls,” she wrote Sunday. “We must stand up to terrorism. #BringBackOurGirls.”

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