18 Apr 2014

Parents seek kidnapped daughters in forest

7:49 am on 18 April 2014

The parents of some of the schoolgirls abducted from a school in north-east Nigeria have gone into the forest in a desperate search for their daughters.

More than 100 schoolgirls were taken from the school in Chibok, a remote part of Borno, on Monday night. The military said on Wednesday that most of the girls had escaped.

However, state officials and parents said more than 100 were still missing.

It is thought members of Boko Haram took the girls to forests near the border with Cameroon.

The group is waging a bloody campaign for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

On Thursday, school principal Asabe Kwambura said that the report from the military was "not true" and that only 14 of the 129 kidnapped girls had escaped.

Parents of the girls have told the BBC that more than 100 girls are still missing. They are believed to be being held in the Sambisa forest in north-east Nigeria.

A group of parents have raised money to buy fuel and water, and have headed into the forest with a vigilante group to search for the girls.

A BBC correspondent in Lagos says this is an extremely dangerous mission. However, one parent told the BBC he was willing to die in the forest in the attempt to free his daughter.