UK offers spy planes to help Nigeria schoolgirl search

People attend a demonstration calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped schoolgirls of the Chibok secondary school, in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. A Nigerian government official said “all options are open” in efforts to rescue almost 300 abducted schoolgirls from their captors as US reconnaissance aircraft started flying over this West African country in a search effort. Boko Haram, the militant group that kidnapped the girls last month from a school in Borno state, had released a video yesterday purporting to show some of the girls. A civic leader said representatives of the missing girls’ families were set to view the video as a group later today to see if some of the girls can be identified. AP

LONDON — Britain has offered Nigeria surveillance aircraft and a military team to help with the search for more than 200 missing schoolgirls abducted a month ago by Boko Haram militants, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

“Today I can announce we have offered Nigeria further assistance in terms of surveillance aircraft, a military team to embed with the Nigerian army in their HQ and a team to work with US experts to analyse information on the girls’ location,” he told parliament.

Specialist teams from the United States, Britain, France and Israel have been sent to help in the search operation, which Nigeria’s military has said is concentrated on the Sambisa forest area of Borno state.

US surveillance planes have been scouring a vast swathe of northern Nigeria looking for the girls.

Boko Haram this week released a video of more than one hundred of the girls, saying they had converted to Islam.

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