The US and British governments knew where at least 80 of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram were, but failed to launch a rescue mission, according to reports.
Former British High Commissioner to Nigeria,Dr. Andrew Pocock, claimed that a large group of the missing girls were spotted by British and American surveillance officials shortly after their disappearance, but experts felt nothing could be done.
According to The Sunday Times,Pocock said that Western governments felt “powerless” to help as any rescue attempt would have been too risky with Boko Haram terrorists using the girls as human shields.
According to Pocock : “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.”
He said the girls were there for at least four weeks but authorities were ‘powerless’ to intervene – and the Nigerian government did not ask for help anyway.
He said: “A land-based attack would have been seen coming miles away and the girls killed, an air-based rescue, such as flying in helicopters or Hercules, would have required large numbers and meant a significant risk to the rescuers and even more so to the girls.”
In an investigation by Christina Lamb for the Sunday Times Magazine, Dr. Pocock said the information was passed to the Nigerians but they made no request for help.
Dr. Stephen Davis, a former canon at Coventy Cathedral, who has spent several years attempting to negotiate with the terror group, said Boko Haram “makes ISIS look like playtime” and said it is “beyond belief” that the authorities both in Nigeria and the West do not know where the schoolgirls are.
Davis insists the locations of the camps where the girls are being kept are well known and can even be seen on Google maps. He added: “How many girls have to be raped and abducted before the West will do anything?”
Terrorists stormed a secondary boarding school in the remote town of Chibok in Borno State, northern Nigeria in April 2014 and seized 276 girls, who were preparing for end-of-year exams.
Although 57 of the girls managed to escape, the rest have remained missing and have not been heard from or seen since apart from in May that year, when 130 of them appeared in a Boko Haram video wearing hijabs and reciting the Koran.
