Boko Haram Releases New Video of Chibok Girls

#BringBackOurGirls is back in the spotlight after a group claiming to be Boko Haram released a new video saying some of the abducted girls were killed in Nigerian airstrikes.

In the disturbing video, the group says it still is holding around 50 of the 276 Chibok girls abducted over two years ago and is willing to exchange them for imprisoned Boko Haram terrorists.

In an exclusive interview with CBN News, one mother of an abducted Chibok girl explains why she thinks the Nigerian government was involved with the terrorists the night of the attack. Watch more of her story above.

The video also shows one of the kidnapped Chibok girls describing the hardships the remaining girls held deep in the Sambisia Forest face daily at the hands of the terrorists.

She pleads with parents from the community to pressure the Nigerian government to release the jailed militants in exchange for the girls' release.

The video comes in the midst of an ongoing leadership battle within the terrorist organization. The Islamic State -- based in Syria and Iraq -- announced it appointed Abu Musab al-Barnawi as the new leader of the Nigerian Boko Haram.

Al-Barnawi recently pledged to re-engage attacks on the Christian community and churches in Nigeria, but the latest video comes from the terror organization's former leader Abubakar Shekau who has challenged his replacement.

"In the midst of a leadership struggle within Boko Haram, using the kidnapped Chibok girls as a bargaining tool is reprehensible. These young girls who did nothing more than seek an education should be released immediately," Elijah Brown, executive vice president of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative and an expert on the crisis in Nigeria said.

Some of the parents of the abducted girls' claim the Nigerian government knew the attack was coming, set the school girls up, and are not actively working to rescue them.

When asked about these claims, Brown responded that it is certainly possible this theory is true:

"The kidnapping occurred on a Monday, Monday evening, but really it began the Friday night before. The principal of the school called all of the girls together on Friday night and they said we know that there have been attacks in this area and that in the past when there've been attacks you've been told to run out into the forest and hide.

What we're asking is that you don't do that any longer, that you gather at a set location should there be an attack and wait for the military. That was on Friday evening.

On Monday evening, an attack occurred, that principal was not at the school, the security forces were not at the school, and all of the girls did just as they were instructed: they gathered at one location and they waited for the military. The first Boko Haram insurgents who showed up that day were wearing military fatigues. And at first those young ladies thought they were being rescued, and did exactly what they had been told, they waited.

Unfortunately it was Boko Haram terrorists who kidnapped those young women, 276 girls and carried them out into the Sambisa Forest. It is certainly possible that other local actors, that the local politicians have been aware of at least the general locations of where these girls have been…

We don't know that for certain, but given the broader story of what unfolded over those three or four days, it is certainly possible that those girls were intentionally sold, and perhaps local government officials have been hiding them to continue to protect the Boko Haram insurgent terrorists."

In 2014 Amnesty International revealed that the Nigerian security forces had more than four hours of advance warning about the raid on the state-run boarding school but did not act to try and stop it.

Sadly, Brown says the Nigerian girls who successfully escape their captors and return home are often greeted by suspicion and skepticism.

"It is a heart breaking situation," Brown said. "These young women who've been kidnapped, they've been brutalized by Boko Haram, those who have escaped whether they're young school children or other women, then face this third terror: reintegration."

"And it has certainly been clear that some of the communities have been very hesitant to receive these women because their fear that they've been brainwashed, and there's also a deeply troubling and unfortunate rumor which is going around that children who have been born to these 'Boko Haram wives' have a DNA, genetic predisposition to become terrorists themselves," he said.

"This is where hopefully the church and where Christians and others can come alongside and provide the kind of support services that are necessary and enable these young women who've been so traumatized to once again experience a renewed life," Brown continued. "Our hope remains high that these young ladies are going to be rescued."