Nigeria’s military says it has rescued another group of women and children who were kidnapped by Boko Haram militia and were being detained in Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa forest.
Earlier this week, the army said it rescued nearly 300 women and girls from the same forest in the north-eastern Borno state as it fights to quash the six-year Islamist insurgency.
Nigeria’s defence spokesman General Chris Olukolade said the military had seized militant camps.
“Troops in the last few days rescued over 200 girls and 93 women and additional number from different locations in the forest,” General Olukolade said.
“Over 13 terrorists camps including the notorious Tokumberi camp in the Sambisa forest have been captured.”
The official said military operations will continue until all the hostages are rescued.
He said the militants had been “dislodged”, as the military showed video clips of motorists fleeing.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sinful”, has snatched at least 2,000 women and girls from their families since the start of 2014, according to Amnesty International.
Many of them have ended up as sex slaves or are used as human shields by the militants.
The uprising poses the greatest security threat to Africa’s largest economy and leading oil producer, but it was only the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok a year ago that focused the world’s attention.
It was not clear if any of the Chibok schoolgirls were among those recently rescued.
In the last two months, the Nigerian army has taken back control of swathes of territory in the remote north with the backing of troops from neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Nigerians hope president-elect Muhammadu Buhari, a former army general, will stamp out the rebellion which his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, struggled to confront.
