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Boko Haram released a video on Sunday saying that the Nigerian air force bombings killed some of the 276 Nigerian schoolgirls that were kidnapped. This video, the first after several months seem to prove that many of the girls are still alive, showing what their spokesman claimed were bodies of girls killed by airstrikes. It has been over two years since the girls were kidnapped from Chibok town.

On Sunday, Ahmed Saldika, a Nigerian journalist with Boko Haram contacts posted the video on Twitter. The video showed a masked man in camouflage guarding most of the girls who were wearing long Islamic gowns. Many were holding babies who could have been as a result of rape by some of the fighters to whom the girls were forcibly married. Their faces were bleak, and some of them tried to hold back tears. The masked man said claimed that nearly 40 of the girls have been married off and demanded the release of prisoners in return for the setting the girls free.

Maida Yakubu, one of the girls identified in the video said that nobody cared for them. She narrated how an aircraft bombarded the area injuring and killing many of the girls and some of the fighters. She pleaded with the Nigerian government to release Boko Haram prisoners so that they too can be freed. She also complained about the lack of food and safe drinking water.

The girls were abducted from a boarding school as the assembled for an examination in April 2014. Some managed to escape, but 218 are still missing. There have been daily protests by Nigerian activists and the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter hashtag which triggered support and peaceful demonstrations in different parts of the world and also from Michelle Obama, America’s First Lady.