Nigerian military rescue nearly 150 women and children from Islamic Boko Haram militants
The Nigerian military says it has rescued 149 women and children abducted by the armed group Boko Haram in the country’s northeast.
Onyema Nwachuku, army spokesman, said on Sunday the freed captives included 54 women and 95 children, according to the NAN news agency.
“The rescued hostages are currently receiving medical attention,” he said in a statement, adding that they would be “profiled after the medical screening.”
The rescues took place during a raid on a Boko Haram hideout in the community of Yerimari Kura on Saturday.
Boko Haram logo photo/Arnold Platon via wikimedia commons
Nwachuku said that army oldiers killed three fighters during the operation and captured five others, all suspected to be faithful to Boko Haram.
“Troops of Operation Lafiya Dole have continued to make progress in clearance operations to smoke out Boko Haram insurgents who escaped from their previous stronghold in the Sambisa Forest.
“On Saturday, the troops made further operational exploit into Boko Haram’s hideout at Yerimari-Kura, in a deliberate operation to extricate and rescue hostages held by the insurgents in their hideout.
“In the encounter, troops killed three Boko Haram insurgents and captured five,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Abuja, capital of Nigeria, said the number of people Boko Haram had kidnapped in Yerimari Kura “demonstrated the group’s resilience”, despite losing significant swaths of territory to the Nigerian army in recent years.
Boko Haram, whose name roughly translates to “Western education is forbidden” or “Western education is a sin,” has waged a nearly 10-year armed campaign to create an Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria.
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