Kidnapped Girls From Chibok - Nigeria

The US has revealed it is flying manned surveillance missions over Nigeria to try to find more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

It comes after militants released a video of about 130 girls, saying they could be swapped for jailed fighters.

International outrage

The government's inability to rescue the girls nearly a month after they were abducted by Boko Haram has sparked worldwide outrage, protests and a social media campaign.

As further condemnation of the Nigerian abductions spread, Saudi Arabia's grand mufti Sheikh Abulaziz al-Sheikh said Boko Haram rebels who kidnapped the schoolgirls had "set up to smear the image of Islam".

Sheikh said Boko Haram had been "misguided" and should be "shown their wrong path and be made to reject it".

"By Allah, these girls will not leave our hands until you release our brothers in your prison," he said. "You took our brothers four or five years ago, and now they are in your prisons. You do many things, and now you talk of these girls. We will not let them go until you release our brothers." But he also says he still plans to sell them into slavery.The video released Monday is the first glimpse of the girls since Boko Haram fighters snatched them from a boarding school in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok.

The video, released by French news agency Agence France-Presse, purports to show about 100 of the 276 girls kidnapped byBoko Haram fighters nearly a month ago. It's the first time they've been seen since their abduction April 14. 

The girls sit quietly on the ground, dressed in traditional Islamic garb chanting,

"Praise be to Allah, the lord of the world.” 

Sources: 

French news agency Agence France-Presse

CNN