The United Nations warned Boko Haram on Tuesday that if they carried out their leader’s threat to sell the girls, they would forever be liable to prosecution for war crimes, even decades after the event.
“We warn the perpetrators that there is an absolute prohibition against slavery and sexual slavery in international law. These can … constitute crimes against humanity,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.
The military’s inability to find the girls in three weeks, has led to protests in the northeast, Abuja and Lagos, the commercial capital. More are expected on Tuesday in Abuja, just as delegates will be collecting their badges to allow them entry to the hotel where the forum will take place.
Britain and the United States have both offered to help track down the girls, but neither has given specifics, and neither has Nigeria specified what help, if any, it wants.
British Foreign Minister William Hague reiterated an offer of help to Nigeria on Tuesday, after calling the abductions “disgusting and immoral”.
Worsening violence so close to the capital has also put the spot light on security arrangements for the WEF, with a few delegates cancelling, although organizers still expect most to arrive as planned.
Police and military units were deployed outside the Sheraton hotel, where delegates picked up credentials for the forum. A black pick-up truck carrying four men dressed in black with sub-machine guns patrolled, then sped off.
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