U.S. Offers To Help Nigeria In Search For Abducted Students

Posted: May, 02 2014, 12:05PM

Marie Harf, U.S State Department Spokeswoman

International focus remains on the fate of the abducted students still missing from a mass kidnapping at a state-run girls school in Northern Nigeria more than two weeks ago. Now, the Americans have offered to lend their assistance to Nigerian military forces in their own continued search.
The abduction took place on the night of April 15th when convoys of heavily armed troops, many wearing unmarked green colored military fatigues stormed the dormitories of the secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.
Developments since then have been murky, from the actual number of students taken at gunpoint, to claims by the Nigerian military of firefights of engaging the militants with claims of rescuing the more than 200 students. Those claims by the Nigerian forces were later recanted. About 40 of the students escaped with the remainder missing.
"We have been engaged with the Nigerian government in discussions on what we might do to help support their efforts to find and free these young women," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told a daily briefing in Washington. "We will continue to have those discussions and help in any way we can."
It is unclear as to what the Americans may be offering in terms of assistance. In the circles of Washington politics it is also unclear if statements from one source will push one agency, or government body, to act.
In the case of the missing students, it is unclear if an earlier U.S. Senate issued resolution, condemning the kidnapping, and later followed by statements from Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who chairs the Senate Sub-Committee on African Affairs, had led the U.S. State Department to issue their statement to reporters in Washington.
As to what kind of assistance the U.S. is prepared to offer Nigeria in their fight against the Boko Haram, at press time, is a tightly held secret.
SaharaReporters contacted both the offices of Senator Coons, and the U.S. State Department, and no further information was offered to us.
What does remain clear is that the State Department offer appears to be real, and open-ended. That assistance may well include air support, equipment, advisory troops, and further intelligence assistance in what has been a protracted battle for the Nigerian forces, against a so far elusive terrorist organization.