The Director of Defence Information,
Brig.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, said on Friday that women and children abducted by
suspected Boko Haram militants have been freed.
They were freed by soldiers deployed
for special operations in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
Olukolade said the special forces
stormed one of the camps located within the Sambisa Forest, where the women and
children were being held and rescued nine of them – three women and six
children.
The defence spokesman said the
soldiers were still combing the forest in a frantic search for a woman and two
of her children believed to be missing in the 16-kilometre long forest.
He explained that the women were
abducted from a police formation during the attack on some security
establishments in Bama, Borno State, on May 7, 2013.
“Troops of the special operations
have rescued three women and six children after overrunning three terrorists’
camps in the notorious Sambisa Forest of Central Borno in the ongoing onslaught
against terrorists.
“The women and children, who were
kidnapped from police barracks and environs during the May 7 attack on Bama,
had been held in the camp since their abduction and were featured in the video
by Abubakar Shekau recently.
“Troops combing the forest are,
however, yet to locate one other woman and her two children,” he said.
A BBC report had quoted the leader of
the Boko Haram sect (Shekau) as having said in a video on May 13, 2013, that
some women and children were taken by operatives of the sect in retaliation for
the arrest of the wives and children of their members by security operatives.
“If they do not leave our wives
and children, we will not leave them,” Shekau reportedly said.
Shekau was quoted to have said that anybody taken into
custody could begin a new life as a “servant.”
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