A suspected female suicide bomber intercepted
in northern Cameroon on Friday before she could blow herself up claimed
to be one of 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in the Nigerian
town of Chibok in 2014, military and local government sources have told Reuters.
Two girls carrying explosives were
stopped by local self-defense forces in the village of Limani, in an
area of northern Cameroon that has been the target of frequent suicide
bombings in recent months.
They were then handed over to Cameroonian soldiers belonging to a multi-national force set up to take on Boko Haram.
In a high-profile attack that sparked a
global outcry, Boko Haram militants raided the school in April 2014
while the girls were taking exams. They loaded 270 of them onto trucks,
though around 50 escaped shortly afterwards.
“One of them indeed declared that she is
one of the Chibok hostages. She is around 15. We are now verifying,
because on the Nigerian side they have the names and photos of these
girls,” said local government administrator Raymond Roksdo.
Two military sources, who asked not to
be identified as they were not authorized to speak to the press, also
confirmed that the girl had claimed to have been one of the Chibok
abductees.
“We need a few days to be able to
confirm this information. We have to debrief all the men who were
present and interrogate the two girls before we can say anything,” one
of the military sources said.
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