"We are suspecting that Chibok girls are living with the insurgents in bunkers, I think the military must carry out their operations beyond the surface earth," Shettima said on Tuesday, according to Nigeria's Daily Post.

"They (Boko Haram) were also known to have dug tunnels to enable them (to) move from house to house. So, having been left unchallenged for such a long time, such possibility cannot be ruled out, which poses serious obstacles within the forest," he added.

Last April, the schoolgirls were kidnapped from the town of Chibok by the extremist group, which has terrorized the northeastern regions of Nigeria for six years in an attempt to establish an Islamic caliphate.

Since then, hope that they will be found has steadily dwindled, despite repeated promises from former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. (Screenshot AP/via Globe and Mail)

Although several dozen girls managed to escape as the kidnappers were taking the hostages to the Sambisa Forest in northeast Nigeria, 219 remain missing. While the exact nature of their fate is unknown, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has claimed that schoolgirls, many of them raised as Christians, have been converted to Islam and "married off" to Boko Haram fighters or sold for as little as $12.

One of Boko Haram's former captives, Liatu Andrawus, a 23-year-old mother of two children, told The Globe and Mail that she met the hundreds of captured schoolgirls while she was being held in captivity in the northeastern Nigerian town of Gwoza.

She recalled how she and the girls would gather to pray and comfort each other, and discuss how to flee the militant group.

"We always talked about how we could escape. Sometimes we sat down and prayed together and hugged and cried. They were remembering their good moments with their parents and loved ones," Andrawus said.

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