Nigerian army rescues 300 women and girls, none from Chibok
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| This screen shot of the official Twitter feed of the Nigerian Armed Forces shows tweets announcing the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from the Sambisa Forest in Nigeria and the destruction of three terrorist camps during the operation, Tuesday, April 28, 2015. An Army spokesman says the rescued females are not those kidnapped from Chibok by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014. |
MAIDUGURI,
Nigeria (AP) -- Nigerian troops rescued nearly 300 girls and women
during an offensive Tuesday against Boko Haram militants in the
northeastern Sambisa Forest, the military said, but they did not include
any of the schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok a year ago.
The army announced the rescue on Twitter and said it was screening and interviewing the abducted girls and women.
Troops
destroyed and cleared four militant camps and rescued 200 abducted
girls and 93 women "but they are not the Chibok girls," army spokesman
Col. Sani Usman told The Associated Press.
Nearly
300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok by
the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram in April 2014. The militants took
the schoolgirls in trucks into the Sambisa Forest. Dozens escaped, but
219 remain missing.
The plight of the
schoolgirls, who have become known as "the Chibok girls," aroused
international outrage and a campaign for their release under the hashtag
(hash)BringBackOurGirls.
Their kidnapping
brought Boko Haram to the attention of the world, with even U.S. first
lady Michelle Obama becoming involved as she tweeted a photograph of
herself holding the campaign sign.
Boko Haram
has kidnapped an unknown number of girls, women and young men to be used
as sex slaves and fighters. Many have escaped or been released as Boko
Haram has fled a multinational offensive that began at the end of
January.
A military source who was in Sambisa
told The Associated Press that some of the women rescued Tuesday
fought
back, and that Boko Haram was using armed women as human shields,
putting them as their first line of defense.
The
Nigerian troops managed to subdue them and rounded them all up, and
some said they were forced to
fight for Boko Haram, said the source, who
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
to the media.
Boko Haram also has used girls and women as suicide bombers, sending them into crowded market places and elsewhere.
A
month ago the Nigerian military began pounding the Sambisa Forest in
air raids, an assault they said earlier they had been avoiding for fear
of killing the Chibok schoolgirls, or inciting their captors to kill
them.
Two weeks ago, counterinsurgency
spokesman Mike Omeri said a multinational offensive that began at the
end of January had driven Boko Haram from all major towns in the
northeast and that Nigerian forces were concentrating on the Islamic
militant stronghold in the Sambisa Forest. Omeri said the military
believed that the Chibok girls might be held there.
In
Chibok, community leader Pogu Bitrus said townspeople were desperately
trying to verify the identity of the freed girls and women. He said the
town had learned of the rescue through social media, not from the
military.
"We are trying to verify if there
are Chibok girls among them. We are working hard to verify. ... All we
know is this number have been rescued," he said. His comments reflected a
distrust of the military, which has published many misstatements about
the girls and once even claimed to have rescued some, though that proved
to be untrue.
Unconfirmed reports over the
past year had indicated the girls were broken up into smaller groups and
had been forced to convert to Islam and that some were "married" off to
their captors. Some witnesses said they saw the girls being ferried by
canoe across Lake Chad and into neighboring Cameroon.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau published a video in which he threatened to sell the girls as slaves.
A
Muslim leader who had tried to negotiate their release told the AP that
at least three had died - from a snake bite, dysentery and malaria.
But
the military has reported that none of the girls they found as they
freed towns were the Chibok girls, indicating Boko Haram fighters might
have held on to their most famous assets and taken them with them when
they retreated to the Sambisa Forest, a national game reserve.
Unknown hundreds of people have been killed as the extremists retreated, according to reports from recaptured towns.
On
Monday, a local government committee reported the burial of hundreds of
skeletons of children, women and men believed killed by Boko Haram in
Damasak, a town on the border with Niger.
"I
know that there was a large-scale atrocity, but I cannot tell you the
precise number of dead bodies," Senator-elect Abubakar Kyari told
reporters in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital 180 kilometers (110
miles) southeast of Damasak.
Damasak was recaptured by troops from Chad and Niger last month and had been occupied by the Islamic extremists since November.
Boko
Haram continues to attack isolated communities. The government of
neighboring Niger said a Boko Haram attack on Karamga island in Lake
Chad over the weekend killed 156 militants, 46 soldiers and 28
civilians.
