LAGOS, Nigeria -- They look calm, subdued. One young woman
with a purple traditional hijab covering her head and upper body holds a
baby. Few know what horrors they may have been through or witnessed.
The
military has released the first photos of what it says are some of the
hundreds of women and children that troops freed in recent days in the
Sambisa Forest amid heavy combat with Boko Haram.
President
Goodluck Jonathan, whose term ends this month, said Thursday that the
Sambisa Forest is the last refuge for the Islamic militants and he
pledged to "hand over a Nigeria completely free of terrorist
strongholds."
The military says it is
screening the girls and women to find out what villages they came from.
Some women the soldiers tried to rescue even shot at their rescuers, a
military spokesman has said, indicating that some might now identify
with Boko Haram after months of captivity and forced marriages. It also
remains unclear if some of the women had willingly joined Boko Haram, or
are family members of fighters.
The photos,
which the military said were taken on Wednesday and Thursday, show 20 or
so women, children and babies looking generally healthy physically,
though one child is thin.
There has been no
announcement yet on whether any of those rescued are the students who
were kidnapped from the Chibok school a year ago, a mass kidnapping that
outraged much of the world.
Some photos were
taken in an open courtyard with a high wall and leafy trees beyond. A
military man in a flight suit, an assault rifle held by his side, stands
among them. A young military medic with blue rubber gloves and a
surgical mask dangling from his ears appears to be checking several of
the children.
Muhammad Gavi, a spokesman for a
self-defense group that fights Boko Haram, said some of the hundreds of
women and girls who were freed are pregnant, citing information he got
from some group members who have seen the females.
The
Nigerian military first reported rescuing almost 300 women and children
in the Sambisa Forest on Tuesday after deploying ground troops into the
forest more than a week ago. The army spokesman, Col. Sani Usman, told
The Associated Press on Thursday that more than 100 additional girls and
over 50 more women have also been rescued.
He
said in a statement that several lives were lost, including that of a
soldier and a woman, during shootouts in nine separate extremist camps
in the forest.
Some captives have reportedly
become indoctrinated into believing the group's Islamic extremist
ideology, while others established strong emotional attachments to
militants they had been forced to marry.
The
military initially appeared incapable of curbing Boko Haram as the
insurgents took control of a large swath of northeast Nigeria last year
and declared it an Islamic caliphate. That changed when the military
received helicopter gunships and heavy arms and some neighboring nations
launched an offensive against Boko Haram at the end of January.
President
Jonathan lost March 28 elections, in part because of the military
failures and a perceived uncaring attitude to the plight of victims of
Boko Haram. Former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari won at the polls
this time, and becomes president on May 29.
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