When 100 armed men turned up at a girls' boarding school they claimed to be Nigerian government troops sent to protect the pupils from marauding terrorists.
Staff took them at their word and it was only when 329 terrified teenagers were ordered out of their beds in the dead of night and herded into Toyota Hilux jeeps that they knew something was wrong.
In fact the soldiers were themselves terrorists from the radical Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram – and they were there to carry out one of worst mass kidnappings in modern history.
Families of the schoolgirls, aged from 15 to 18, are certain their daughters are now being used as sex slaves by an extreme sect that has killed 1,500 people since the start of this year alone.
They are captives in the wild Sambisa Forest in north-east Nigeria where Boko Haram has a heavily armed camp of bunkers, tunnels, ramshackle buildings and tents.
One girl who recently escaped following an earlier kidnapping said she was prized as a terror leader's wife because she had been a virgin. She said young female captives were raped up to 15 times a day, forced to convert to Islam and had their throats cut if they refused. Read More
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