Forbidden Education

"They tied a rope around my neck and pulled me to the ground. They said they would slaughter me."
"They took me along with them [into battle], strapped bullets to me and told me to lie down whenever they exchanged gunfire with Nigerian soldiers."
Hanna, Abuja, Nigeria

The girl, who asked only to be named as Hanna, said she was taught how to fire a gun and then ordered into battle by Boko Haram 

"They took them back to a cave and tied them up. They cut their throats, one at a time. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest, because I was the bait."
freed Nigerian schoolgirl hostage

"In general, Nigeria has failed to mount an effective campaign against Boko Haram. In the face of a new and more sophisticated threat than it has faced before, its security forces have been slow to adapt with new strategies, new doctrines and new tactics. [Nigeria's own record of security forces fighting Boko Harm committing atrocities is] even more troubling."
Alice Friend, S.S. Defence Department principal director for Africa

Hanna, asking her family name be waived describes how she spent several months of 2013 as a Boko Haram hostage. She was taught to fire a gun, and three times ordered into battle, ammunition strapped to her back. From her description of the fearful incidents she lived through as a helpless young prisoner of Boko Haram, diplomats representing the West fear this may be the fate that awaits the schoolgirls abducted from Chibok last month.

Nigeria has reaffirmed it has no intention of releasing Boko Haram prisoners the government has incarcerated, in exchange for the schoolgirls' release. Hanna's experience was to have been abducted with a dozen girls a year before the mass attack on the Chibok boarding school. Her two months as a hostage included times when she was tethered like an animal, beaten for her refusal to convert to Islam.

Other young women kidnapped by Boko Haram and who have escaped speak of forcible conversion to Islam, knives held at their throats. And being used to lure other Nigerians into traps set up with Boko Haram ambushing the unaware, then slaughtering them in front of the girls. One young girl described being forced to stand in a field close by a village. Her presence attracted the attention of people working with the army, and five men approaching her were ambushed then slaughtered.

Boko Haram has released a new video claiming to show the missing Nigerian schoolgirls, alleging they had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed. A total of 276 girls were abducted on April 14 from the northeastern town of Chibok, in Borno state, which has a sizeable Christian community.  Picture: Boko Haram/AFP

U.S. government authorities have stated their top priority in the situation is the rescue of the 276 schoolgirls abducted from Chibok last month. They have warned that the jihadist group has an expanding reach and a capacity for growth, along with the potential for staging more sophisticated and deadlier terror attacks. They also did not shy away from commenting on the Nigerian government's lack of commitment and ability to combat Boko Haram.

As for mounting a rescue mission, there are doubts that this can be achieved without further imperilling the lives of a large number of the schoolgirls in the process of a rescue.