KANO: Boko Haram has claimed that the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped more than six months ago have converted to Islam and been “married off”, shocking their families and confirming their suspicions about a supposed ceasefire and deal for their release.

The Islamist group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, made the claim in a new video in which he also denied government assertions of an agreement to end hostilities.

The mention of the girls, who were abducted from the remote north-eastern town of Chibok on April 14, is the first by Shekau since May 5, when about 100 of the teenagers were shown on camera.

Then, the girls were seen wearing the hijab. The militant leader said then that not all had converted.

In the latest video, he indicated that all of those held had now become Muslims and married, in line with testimony from former hostages who said forced marriage and conversion were common in Boko Haram camps.

“Don’t you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam? They have now memorised two chapters of the holy Quran,” he said.

Shekau previously threatened to sell the girls as slave brides and also suggested he would be prepared to release them in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

In the latest message, he said while laughing: “We have married them off. They are in their marital homes.”

The head of the Chibok Elders Forum, Pogo Bitrus, said on Saturday: “It (the claim about marriage) is shocking to us, although we know that Boko Haram is not a reliable group.

“We were sceptical about the talks to release our girls and we never took the ceasefire seriously because since the announcement, they have never stopped attacking communities.

“Therefore the information that our girls have been married off is not surprising to us,” said Bitrus, whose four nieces are among the hostages.

“We are only hoping the government will step up whatever efforts it is making to quell the insurgency.”

Nigeria’s government said on October 17 that they had reached a deal to end five years of deadly violence in the country’s far northeast, as well as agreement to release the Chibok girls.

But violence has continued unabated, including a triple bomb attack on a bus station in the northern city of Gombe on Friday, which killed at least eight and injured dozens more.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2014