The relatives of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls reportedly say that the girls have been forced to marry Boko Haram militants and taken them to neighbouring Chad and Cameroon.
According to The Guardian, the relatives were told by the members of the forest community that there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko Haram militants
An unnamed village elder reportedly revealed that insurgents paid leaders a dowry of 2,000 nairas (12.4 dollars) for each girl and fired celebratory gunshots for several minutes after conducting mass wedding ceremonies.
The girls aged between 16 and18 were kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok in north-eastern Bornu state on April 14.
Gordon Brown, former prime minister and the United Nations' special adviser on girls' education, will visit Nigeria to start an awareness campaign on the plight of the schoolgirls' and raise funds.
Brown said that while it is not possible to stop terrorism overnight, the perpetrators needed to be made aware that murdering and abducting schoolchildren is a heinous crime that the international authorities are determined to punish.