WUNRN
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/28/africa/nigerian-troops-rescue-women-girls/
Nigeria - Girls Rescued from Boko Haram Camps, Were NOT Abducted
Chibok Schoolgirls
By Aminu Abubakar, Christian Purefoy and Ralph Ellis, CNN – April 29, 2015
Hotoro,
Kano, Nigeria (CNN) Girls rescued from Boko Haram terror camps in Sambisa Forest on
Tuesday are "not the Chibok girls," Nigerian Army spokesman Sani
Usman said.
However,
one official did not rule out that captives from other Boko Haram camps that
were raided might include some of the 200 girls
abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok.
Nigerian
troops rescued 200 girls and 93 women Tuesday in the Sambisa Forest in the
northeastern part of the country, the Nigerian Armed Forces announced on its
official Twitter account. The forest is a stronghold for the militant Boko
Haram group and is not far from Chibok.
Military
spokesman Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade said the rescued girls and women are still
being screened and none has spoken to their families yet.
The
2014 mass abduction from Chibok led to an international social media movement,
#BringBackOurGirls, to rescue them. Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, has
been kidnapping females for years and has hundreds in their custody.
The
Tokumbere, Sassa and Tlafa terror camps were raided and destroyed, said a
source close to the military. The Tokumbere camp is the most notorious, where
the training of small children by Boko Haram is said to have occurred, the
source said. Boko Haram terrorists were killed in the operation, but the
military did not say how many.
In recent weeks, Nigerian troops and vigilantes moved into the Sambisa Forest. Last Wednesday the troops had to retreat because of explosive devices Boko Haram planted in the forest, according to military sources and a vigilante who was with the troops.
On
Monday, troops re-entered the forest and on Tuesday afternoon they raided Boko
Haram camps and rescued scores of girls and women.
"We
stumbled on the girls and may find more," Usman said.
Information
about the fate of the kidnapped schoolgirls has been spotty and
inconsistent, with some school
officials giving conflicting figures for the number of girls
who were abducted or escaped their captors.
"We
have no idea where the Chibok girls are or were," CNN correspondent
Christian Purefoy said Tuesday.
The
name Boko Haram translates to "Western education is sin" in the local
Hausa language. The group has said its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement
of Sharia law across Nigeria, which is split between a majority Muslim north
and a mostly Christian south.