The rescue teams, aided by surveillance helicopters, were said to have moved deeper into the vast forest that extends into neighbouring Cameroon and other states in the North-East.
A senator representing Borno South in the National Assembly, Ali Ndume, made this known to the Cable News Network just as President Goodluck Jonathan summoned military chiefs and governors to emergency security meetings on Thursday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Ten of the girls escaped from an un-identified camp used by the Boko Haram insurgents on Wednesday morning. Four had earlier escaped when one of the vehicles conveying them to the camp broke down on Tuesday morning.
Reuters quoted one of the escapees as saying that the insurgents deceived them into thinking they were soldiers who had come to evacuate them from their hostel to avoid being harmed.
“When we saw these gunmen, we thought they were soldiers. They told all of us to come and walk to the gates and we followed their instructions,” 18-year-old Godiya Isaiah, said.
According to Reuters, when the insurgents started ransacking the school stores and setting fire to the buildings on the school premises, the girls realised they were being kidnapped.
“We were crying,” Isaiah said, recounting how she jumped from one of the trucks and ran into a nearby bush.
The Borno State Commissioner for Education, Inuwa Kubo, said five other girls who also managed to escape told the same story.
He said, “They went into the bus unsuspecting. They were lured into the vehicle because they were told that the school was going to be attacked.”
He told journalists during a news conference in Maiduguri that the girls were asked by the insurgents to be involved in the preparation of meals and they took the opportunity of washing plates to flee the camp.
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