Boko Haram Islamists released 214 captured girls – all pregnant.
Boko Haram captured 276 teenage girls in April 2014. Many of the girls were quickly sold, married off and moved abroad.
The terrorists kept the girls until their pregnancies were four or more months along when an abortion would be difficult or impossible.
IBTimes reported:
The governor of Borno state, north-eastern Nigeria, has said that terror group Boko Haram (now Iswap) deliberately impregnated the 214 girls recently rescued by the army in the Sambisa forest on the border with Cameroon.
The girls were part of some 234 women and children freed after being kidnapped by the terrorists, who are believed to have abducted some 2,000 civilians since the beginning of 2014.
Shortly after the girls were freed, Governor Kashim Shettima was quoted by Nigerian newspaper The Punch as saying: “These people [Boko Haram] have a certain spiritual conviction that any child they father will grow to inherit their ideology whether they live with the children or not.”
“They also believe that whoever does not hold their ideology is an unbeliever that should be killed and rendered homeless and whatever belongs to him or her becomes a legitimate booty recovered from enemies,” he continued.
“After getting their captives pregnant, they keep them to allow the pregnancy mature to an extent of say four or more months to make abortion difficult or impossible for the women due to threats in carrying out abortions at that level.
214 of the girls are pregnant.