Boko Haram menace: Nigeria police offer $300K reward for info on missing girls

The number of girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram militant outfit has risen to 11 on Wednesday after three more girls were reportedly abducted from a village in Nigeria`s northeast.

Zee Media Bureau/Supriya Jha

Abuja: Nigeria police have announced a cash reward of 50 million naira (USD 300,000) to anyone providing information helpful in locating more than 200 girls abducted by the Boko Haram militants.

In a statement, Nigeria police has urged the volunteers to come out in case they have any "credible information that will lead to the location and rescue of the female students", reported the BBC.

The police have reassured that the identity of the informers would be held secret so as to avert any threats.

"The police high command also reassures all citizens that any information given would be treated anonymously and with utmost confidentiality," the statement said.

Meanwhile, the number of girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram militant outfit has risen to 11 as three more girls were reportedly abducted from a village in Nigeria`s northeast.

According to the AFP, Boko Haram militants after having kidnapped eight girls from Nigeria`s Warabe village, went to the neighboring village named Wala and abducted three more girls.

Reports earlier said that eight girls abducted from Gwoza area of Borno state late Sunday. 

"After leaving Warabe the gunmen stormed the Wala village, which is five kilometres (three miles) away and abducted three more girls," Gwoza official Hamba Tada told AFP.

Even as Nigeria struggles to come to terms with the abduction of 276 girls in April, the militants continue to abduct girls audaciously, highlighting the Nigerian government`s failure to check the increasing terrorism.

According to a report in the Voice of America, eight girls aged 12 to 15 were abducted from Warabe village near one of their strongholds in northeast Nigeria overnight on Tuesday. 

The militants were many, and arrived in two trucks painted in Army colour, the report quoted a villager as saying. 

The abduction came shortly just after the Boko Haram in a video claimed the previous mass kidnapping of girls on April 14. 

Claiming for the first time in a video first accessed by the AFP news agency, Boko Harma leader Abubakar Shekau said that the girls were not meant to be in school and it is Allah`s instruction that they must be sold.  Reports have it that the girls, who were in final year of the boarding school, were forced to marry their abductors at a normal bride rate of $12, according to the BBC. 

The heinous abduction and later the video sent by the militant group has been termed as a terrible tragedy and outrage by the US. 

April 14 is a horrific date for all those parents in Nigeria whose daughters were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants from a boarding school in Nigeria`s Chibok boarding school.

Calling the abductions in Nigeria a "a heartbreaking situation", US President Barack Obama has assured of support to Nigeria government in cracking down on militants and has deployed military experts to trace them. Nigeria government is facing increasing flak over its failure to rescue the girls.  The military, too is being criticised a lot as despite having immense power during an 11-month state of emergency in three northeastern states, the Army has failed to rein in the Islamic terrorism.  Boko Haram, when translated to English means "Western education is sin". It was designated as a terrorist organisation in November 2013. It has been launching increasing number of attacks on schools in northern Nigeria, killing and abducting many innocent students.