Military rescues addition 160 women, girls from Boko Haram
(Nigeria) Nigeria's military on Thursday vowed to free more hostages
from Boko Haram after nearly 500 were released from atrocious conditions this
week in the group's Sambisa Forest stronghold.
Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade told reporters in Abuja
the army would "comprehensively" clean out the forest, adding:
"There is great hope for recovery of more hostages of the
terrorists."
The army said on Thursday about 160 hostages were rescued
from the dense, former colonial-era game reserve, while 200 girls and 93 women
were freed on Tuesday.
The numbers underlined the scale of the tactic of mass
abduction used by the militants, who according to Amnesty International have
seized about 2,000 women and girls since the start of last year.
The human rights group's Africa director for research and
advocacy, Netsanet Belay, said the rescues were a "cause for
celebration" but he warned: "This is just the tip of the iceberg.
"There are thousands more women and girls, and men and
boys, who have been abducted by Boko Haram," he said in a statement.
Female former hostages have described being subjected to
forced labour, sexual and psychological abuse as well as having to fight on the
frontline alongside the rebels.
The military released a series of photographs purporting to
show some of the rescued women and children in an undisclosed location, huddled
on the ground watched over by soldiers.
One very young child pictured appeared to be severely
malnourished.
The rescue, after what the military said was a sustained
aerial bombing campaign of the forest, raised hope that some of the 219 girls
snatched from their school last year were among them.
Army spokesman Sani Usman has said the Chibok girls were not
part of the group but defence headquarters in Abuja has said it was too early
to say.
The mass kidnapping from Chibok, in Borno state, prompted
global outrage and forced President Goodluck Jonathan to accept international
help in the search operation for the missing girls.
Olukolade said work was being undertaken to determine the
former hostages' real identities but the priority was getting them to safety.
"Whoever they may be, the important thing is that
Nigerians held captive under very severe and inhuman conditions have been freed
by our gallant troops," he said.
Usman said earlier that the 160 or so hostages were rescued
in an operation involving troops from the army's 7th Division, which has been
tasked with fighting Boko Haram.
"We are still trying to compute the actual number of
those rescued. But tentatively there are about 60 women of various ages and
around 100 children," he said.
One woman was killed in the fighting and eight other rescued
hostages were injured. A soldier was also killed and four others wounded.
Several "terrorist training camps" were cleared
during the operation while equipment and vehicles were seized, he added.
A military source indicated the women were used as human
shields and in some cases fired back at soldiers until they were subdued.
Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy for global
education, Gordon Brown, said he would hold talks with Nigeria's
president-elect Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday.
The former British prime minister said it was "time to
end the nightmare" of kidnappings, which with forced conscription have
been a regular feature of the bloody six-year insurgency.
"Now that some girls have been released we want all
girls released," he said in a statement. "And we want them home with
their families in days -- not months or years."
Brown has spearheaded an initiative to improve security at
schools in Nigeria, which have been a target for the militants, who are opposed
to Western-style, secular education.
Talks with Buhari, who won last month's elections, would
focus on international military support to free the Chibok girls as well as
improving access to secure schools for girls, he added.
Former military ruler Buhari has vowed to crush Boko Haram,
whose quest for a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has left at least
15,000 dead and more than 1.5 million homeless since 2009.
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