Boko Haram terrorists are threatening to kill hostage healthcare workers and Dapchi schoolgirl Leah Sharibu within 24 hours, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said yesterday.
The international organisation is pleading for mercy and urging the government to intervene speedily.
Medical workers Hauwa Mohammed Liman and Alice Loksha, working in Rann, Borno State, were kidnapped in March along with ICRC midwife Saifura Hussaini Ahmed Khorsa, who was killed in September.
Fifteen-year old schoolgirl Sharibu was abducted in February along with her mates from her school in Dapchi, Yobe State. She was held back while others were released.
Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed led a federal government delegation to visit the families of the abducted health workers and the schoolgirl at the weekend.
He promised that they would soon be brought back home.
But yesterday, the ICRC said: โSpeed and urgency are critical. A deadline that could result in the killing of another healthcare worker is less than 24 hours away.โ
It did not give further details on the deadline or its conditions.
There have been no reports of the militants making any demands in exchange for the release of their hostages.
โWe urge you: spare and release these women. They are a midwife, a nurse and a student. Like all those abducted, they are not part of any fight,โ Patricia Danzi, director of ICRC operations in Africa, said in the statement.
โThey are daughters and sisters, one is a mother โ women with their futures ahead of them, children to raise, and families to return to.โ
Liman was working as a midwife at an ICRC-supported hospital, while Loksha was nurse working with UNICEF.
The Geneva-based ICRC, which often works behind the scenes for humanitarian goals in war zones, identified the kidnappers as members of ISWA โ Islamic Stateโs off-shoot in West Africa, after previously declining to name the group.
The organisation did not say how it knew about the 24-hour deadline.
Islamic State in West Africa split from the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram in 2016 and has killed hundreds of soldiers in attacks in northeastern Nigeria in the past few months, security and military sources have told Reuters.
Like Boko Haram, ISWA wants to create a separate state in northeast Nigeria that adheres to a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
