Sixty Women Believed to Have Escaped Boko Haram Militants
July 7, 2014 in Nigeria
Security sources indicated Monday that more than sixty women and girls are reported to have escaped from captivity.
Reports have indicated that more than sixty women and girls have escaped from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram. They are believed to be from a group of sixty-eight women who were kidnapped last month near the town of Damboa in north-eastern Borno state. Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls who were abducted in April of this year.
Security sources have indicated that the women escaped when the militants went to attack a military base near Damboa on Friday. The Nigerian military has also reported that its troops killed more than fifty rebels during clashes that occurred that night. Due to on going insecurities in the region, coupled with poor access to the area, the number of women who managed to escape from Boko Haram remains unclear. However a local vigilante has reported receiving an alert from his colleagues indicating that about sixty-three abducted women and girls had made it back home late on Friday.
Meanwhile frustration continues to grow as more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok, Borno state, on April 14 are still being held captive. Activists of the Bring Back Our Girls movement attempted to march towards the presidential palace in Abuja on Sunday however they were turned back by security forces. According to one activist, Aisha Yesufu, “it’s 83 days today that the girls have been abducted…We have been coming out for 68 days and nobody has really listened to us.”
Nigeria’s overstretched and under-resourced military has been incapable of fighting Boko Haram’s insurgency, which has already killed thousands over the past five years.
