AKIPRESS.COM - The United Nations human rights office May 6 lashed out at the militant group known as Boko Haram which claimed responsibility for kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria and now, referring to the girls as “slaves”, says it plans to sell them “in the market” and “marry them off," the UN News Centre said.

“We are deeply concerned about the outrageous claims made in a video believed to be by the leader of Boko Haram in Nigeria yesterday,” Rupert Colville, the spokesman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in a briefing in Geneva.

“[We] warn the perpetrators that there is an absolute prohibition against slavery and sexual slavery in international law,” the OHCHR spokesperson warned. “These can, under certain circumstances, constitute crimes against humanity.”

He added that there was no statute of limitations for such grave international crimes, including slavery and sexual slavery, “Anyone responsible could be arrested and prosecuted at any time in the future”.

These strong warnings come as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports the abduction of eight more girls in Nigeria.

“This is an outrage and a worsening nightmare for the girls themselves and for the families of the more than 200 girls who have been stolen from their communities in the last several weeks,” said the agency in a news release, which deems it “especially abhorrent” that the girls were allegedly abducted to prevent them from attending school.

“UNICEF calls on the abductors to immediately return these girls unharmed to their communities, and we implore all those with influence on the perpetrators to do everything they can to secure the safe return of the girls – and to bring their abductors to justice,” said the statement.

High Commissioner Navi Pillay has condemned the violent abduction of the girls, believed to be between 15 and 18 years old, seized at gunpoint on April 14 after Boko Haram insurgents stormed a school in the north-eastern town of Chibok.

“The girls must be immediately returned, unharmed, to their families,” her spokesperson said.