On Tuesday, Nigerian military officials said they rescued 200 girls and 93 women from the Sambisa Forest, Boko Haram's last known stronghold. The rescued will receive medical attention to address any physical and mental trauma they may have received.
Boko Haram is thought to have kidnapped around 2,000 girls and women since January of 2014. One of the most prominent of these kidnappings was the abduction of 219 Chibok school girls back in April 14, 2014. None of the rescued women and girls appear to be part of the Chibok group that was abducted. The Nigerian government has not been able to find the girls to this day, it is unclear whether or not they are still alive. The extremist Islamic group has been known to sell many of their abducted females into sex slavery, force them into marriage, and train them to fight against the Nigerian military.
In the past, women and girls have been used as human shields and suicide bombers by Boko Haram. Nigerian soldiers and officials allege that the militant group used some females as their first line of defense on the outskirts of the forest.
Col. Sani Usman of the Nigerian military told the Associated Press that the girls would be taken to an undisclosed location for questioning and identification.
"The processing is continuing, it involves a lot of things because most of them are traumatized and you have got to put them in a psychological frame of mind to extract information from them," Usman told AP.
Sambisa Forest covers a large area, with roughly 23,000 square miles. There are several areas within the forest that Boko Haram is still camped in. The offensive against the militant group has so far captured four of those camps. Though Boko Haram has been pushed back, it still continues to make isolated attacks. It attacked Karamga island in Lake Chad on Saturday, killing 46 soldiers and 28 civilians; 156 militants died in the attack.
