We Located Chibok Girls But Couldn’t Rescue Them – Uk Envoy

The outgoing British High Commissioner
to Nigeria Dr. Andrew Pocock yesterday
said the abducted Chibok school girls
were located but it’s practically
impossible to rescue them safely.
He also said his county was not advocate
for dialogue with the Boko Haram sect,
believed to have abducted the girls from
their hostels last year.
Pocock who visited Kaduna state
Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i made the
remarks at an interactive session with
journalists.
He said “Our ability to return the Chibok
girls is very limited. Well, after the
abduction for some months it was clear
that substantial group of girls were
together.
It was also clear that they were by no
means all of them. It might be a group of
50 or 80; it’s very hard to tell.
It presented a terrible dilemma to
everybody, attempting to rescue
substantial group of girls has two obvious
problems; the risk to the attackers and to
the girls.”
He said “It was possible that Boko Haram
would have killed those girls. And I am
not sure whether the military capacity
existed for the rescue of these girls.
So even though it was possible to say
where some of the girls might have been,
they were beyond rescue in practical
terms. I think the only way for the
return of the girls in my personal
opinion is through the defeat of Boko
Haram.”
He said deployment of security forces to
the North-East to deal with insurgency
was not enough adding that government
must apply economic measures.
The High Commissioner said it was not a
better option to invoke dialogue with
sect because they didn’t constitute a
legitimate government.
“I don’t think we will advocate talking to
people that abduct innocent civilians and
cut peoples throat on video and show it
to the rest of the world.
But what we could be talking about is
disarmament and rehabilitation process
for those who are willing to put down
their weapons,” he added.