Stolen innocence:Father of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirl reveals photos of his daughter

The father of a kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirl has revealed photographs of his daughter pictured before she was snatched by blood-crazed Boko Haram fanatics.

Mary was taken alongside her closest friend who lives next door to her.

Speaking to ITV News, Mary's father said he is desperate with worry and the thought of what his daughter is going through.

Five of his nieces have also been snatched by the militant group Boko Haram which is holding 276 female students.

This week it released a video showing around 100 of the girls and said they will only be freed after the government releases jailed militants.

Mary's father was shown the video in the hope he may recognise his own child or nieces.

Despite not seeing his own daughter he did recognise a girl, he believes to be around 16 or 17, who lives opposite to his family's home.

A group shot of some of the schoolgirls before they were kidnapped by Boko Haram fanatics

 

Snatched: Mary was taken alongside her closest friend who lives next door to her

  

He told ITV News that he did not trust the offer made by Boko Haram to release the girls in exchange for prisoners.

The group, which wants to impose Islamic law on Nigeria, has killed more than 1,500 people this year

in a campaign of bombings and massacres. 

Boko Haram's kidnapping of schoolgirls at a boarding school in northeast Nigeria last month has focused international attention on the extremist group amid outrage that most of the girls have not been rescued Nigeria's government, which has repeatedly denied allegations that it was slow to respond to the mass abduction, had initially suggested there would be no negotiations with Boko Haram.

Missing: Mary, pictured left, with her best friend who was also kidnapped by the militant group last month

 

Parents were trying to turn on a generator in Chibok, hoping to watch it and identify their daughters, said a town leader, Pogu Bitrus.

‘There's an atmosphere of hope - hope that these girls are alive, whether they have been forced to convert to Islam or not,’ he told The Associated Press by telephone. ‘We want to be able to say, “These are our girls.”’

The video showed about 100 girls, indicating they may have been broken up into smaller groups as some reports have indicated.

Fifty-three girls managed to escape and 276 remain missing, police say.

Bitrus said vegetation in the video looked like the Sambisa Forest, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Chibok, where the girls were believed to have been spirited away.