Nigerian Armed Forces made a successful grab of close to 300 women and girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Troops rescued 200 women and 93 girls from the Sambisa Forest Tuesday (April 29), officials confirmed.
Although some may have been in the group, the rescued are “not the Chibok girls” abducted by Boko Haram last year, said Sani Usman, a spokesperson for the Nigerian Army.
According to CNN, the terrorist camps were destroyed after being raided. As of yesterday, the rescued were being “screened and processed,” and had not yet been reunited with family.
“We managed to speak to Nigeria’s military spokesman who believes some of the women are wives of Boko Haram fighters,” Al-Jazeera reporter, Yvonne Ndege said from the town of Abuja, earlier today.
The kidnapped school girls were taken from the predominantly Christian village of Chibok in April 2014. Many are believed to have been married off, sold as slaves, and trained as fighters at Boko Haram camps.
Amnesty International, a human rights organization, said this month that Boko Haram has kidnapped at least 2,000 women and girls in total, and has killed more than 4,000 civilians.
Since January military forces have been driven the extremist group out of the major towns in Northeastern Nigeria, where the attacks have been centered.
Click below for more tweets about the rescue.
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Photo: twitter
