Article content

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s president for weeks refused international help to search for more than 300 girls abducted from a school by Islamic extremists, one in a series of missteps that have led to growing international outrage against the government.

The British Foreign Office says the United Kingdom offered help the day after the mass abduction. And the U.S. has said its embassy and staff agencies offered help “from day one” of the crisis, according to Secretary of State John Kerry.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Nigeria's president refused international help to search for missing girls for weeks Back to video

Yet it was only this week that Nigeria accepted help from the U.S., Britain, France and China.

The delay underlines an apparent lack of urgency from the government and military to find the girls, for reasons that include a reluctance to bring in outsiders as well as possible infiltration by the extremists.

Extremists blew up a bridge, killed an unknown number of people and abducted the wife and two children of a retired police officer in northeast Nigeria, residents said Saturday as an international effort got underway to rescue 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants.