Watch above: Canada is one of the countries answering Nigeria’s call for help, as the urgency to find nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls intensifies. Jennifer Tryon reports.
Latest updates:
- Members of Parliament to hold emergency debate Monday night
- Nigeria accepts Canada’s offer of surveillance equipment and expertise
- Former Boko Haram negotiator said girls could be used to bargain for release of prisoners
- Nigerian officials confirm details of massacre in northeastern border town
Canadian politicians will hold an emergency debate Monday night to discuss the mass kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria.
The Canadian government confirmed Wednesday it had offered Nigeria surveillance equipment and expertise to assist with efforts to locate and rescue 276 girls still missing after Islamist militant group Boko Haram attacked the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School, in northeastern state of Borno, on Apr. 14.
NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar requested the emergency debate in a letter to Speaker of the House of Commons Andrew Scheer on Wednesday, to discuss how Canada will assist.
“This is the very definition of an emergency. Hundreds of young innocent lives are at stake, along with the political and social direction of a country and a region. Parliamentarians need an opportunity to discuss an appropriate Canadian response to this crisis,” Dewar wrote.
Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the abduction of more than 300 girls and threatened to sell them as “slaves.”
Another group of eight girls was kidnapped Sunday night from the town of Warabe, also in Borno state.
Nigeria’s vice president Namadi Sambo, during a visit with International Development Minister Christian Paradis, asked Canada for surveillance equipment and other “vital security hardware which would enhance Nigeria’s capacity in addressing insurgency.”
But Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Wednesday Canada would provide the surveillance equipment to search for the missing girls and only as long as there is Canadian personnel to operate it.
“We obviously would have concerns with Nigeria, with their human rights record… of just simply providing millions of dollars of military equipment as some sort of permanent gift,” Baird said following Question Period in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
WATCH: Canadian politicians discuss what assistance the government is offering Nigeria
Boko Haram may want to exchange girls for prisoners: report
British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Thursday Boko Haram could be using the captive girls as “bargaining chips” in a bid to seek the release of imprisoned militants.
The Daily Telegraph spoke with Shehu Sani, a man who has negotiated with Boko Haram in the past.
“If you look at the fact that these girls have already been in captivity for some three weeks, then it is possible to detect a conciliatory tone in this statement from Shekau – he is not saying he is going to kill the girls,” Sani told the publication.
He explained it’s possible they want to “attach some kind of conditions to the girls being released.”
Speaking at the World Economic Forum meeting in Abuja, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said the situation marked a “turning point” in the fight against Boko Haram.
“I believe that the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end of terror in Nigeria,” he said during a speech, in which he thanked the United States, United Kingdom and France for the assistance they have offered.
Those three countries have all sent experts to the country to assist Nigerian authorities with the search for the girls.
Jonathan also expressed his appreciation to those in attendance, in spite of recent attacks.
“If you had refused to come because of fear, the terrorists would have jubilated,” the BBC reported Jonathan saying.
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