80 abducted Chibok girls were found by US, UK surveillance & then left in captivity- Former UK ambassador to Nigeria says
In a
recent interview with The Sunday Times, a UK Newspaper, former British High
Commissioner to Nigeria, Andrew Pocock, says that 80 of the Government Girls
College Students who were abducted by Boko Haram members in April 2014, were
spotted in Sambisa forest by a team of British and American surveillance but
they could not rescue them as the Nigerian government made no request for help.
“A couple of months
after the kidnapping, fly-bys and an American ‘eye in the sky’ spotted a group
of up to 80 girls in a particular spot in the Sambisa forest, around a very
large tree — called locally the Tree of Life — along with evidence of vehicular
movement and a large encampment. They were there for perhaps up to four weeks,
and the question was what to do about them. Answer came there none.”
He said
despite all the BBOG campaigns in London and the White House, the British and
American troops could not immediately go in to rescue the girls because the
Nigerians never asked for that
“What’s more,” Pocock
says, “the Nigerians never asked for that.”
He
however pointed out that if the Nigerian government had even asked for help, he
said the safety of the girls would have been of utmost priority as it would
have been very risky to go in and carryout any rescue operation
“A land-based attack
would have been seen coming miles away and the girls killed. An air-based
rescue would have required large numbers and meant a significant risk to the
rescuers and even more to the girls. You might have rescued a few, but many
would have been killed. My personal fear was always about the girls not in that
encampment. 80 were there, but 250 were taken, so the bulk were not there. What
would have happened to them? It’s perfectly conceivable that Shekau, the leader
of Boko Haram, would have appeared on one of his videos a week later, saying,
‘Who told you that you could try and free these girls? Let me show you what
I’ve done to them…’ So you were damned if you did, damned if you didn’t. They
were beyond rescue, in practical terms."he said
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