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Nigeria ‘willing to talk’ to Boko Haram over missing girls

– Emergency extension –

Jonathan’s request for a six-month extension of the state of emergency in the northeast requires the approval of both chambers of Nigeria’s parliament.

The request comes almost a year to the day after the state of emergency was first imposed and nearly six months after an initial extension.

But with more than 1,500 people killed this year alone and no let-up in the violence, the wisdom of an extension was immediately called into question.

The government in northern Yobe State swiftly rejected any extension of the state of emergency, slamming it as “apparent failure” over the past year.

Shehu Sani, an expert on Boko Haram and violence in northern Nigeria, said it was a “futile” exercise and the government should instead seek a negotiated settlement.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius denounced what he called the “mass rape” of the missing Nigerian schoolgirls.

These girls “have been the kidnapped and then enslaved, and it’s a mass rape that must be prosecuted and punished as such,” Fabius said during a visit to Washington.

France will host a summit on Saturday focusing on the threat posed by Boko Haram and has invited leaders from at least five African countries, including Nigeria.

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Meanwhile the United Nations’ top expert on worldwide human trafficking called for the negotiated release of the schoolgirls, amid worries they might be sold off.

“The elements of trafficking are there,” said Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the issue, in a conference call with US-based foreign journalists.

“We cannot do politics with the lives of these young girls,” Ezeilo, a Nigerian herself, added.

Jonathan, criticised for his slow response to the kidnappings, has said he believed the students were still in Nigeria and would be freed soon.

But there are fears they may have been split into groups and taken to Chad or Cameroon.

Nigeria’s military is combing the former Sambisa Forest nature reserve in Borno, where Boko Haram camps and arms dumps have previously been found.

Boko Haram has been waging an increasingly deadly insurgency in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north since 2009, attacking schools teaching a “Western” curriculum, churches and government targets.

Civilians, though, have borne the brunt of recent violence and tens of thousands have been displaced after their homes and businesses were razed.

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