Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has publicly threatened to “sell” the 230 schoolgirls the group abducted on 14 April from their school in Chibok, in the northern state of Borno. The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, sent a video to news organizations, in which he said for the first time that his group had taken the girls. In the video, Shekau said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married. “God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions,” he said. The abduction has led to mass protests against the Nigerian government, and its inability to offer protection to Nigerian citizens in the country’s north-east states, where most of Bomko Haram’s attacks occur. The militants’ attacks have killed thousands since 2009.