Nigerian troops have freed more than 800 hostages held by the radical Islamist group, Boko Haram, in a number of villages in the country’s northeastern state of Borno, the military said on Thursday.
The military rescued 520 hostages from the village of Kusumma on Tuesday after clashes with Boko Haram and 309 hostages from 11 villages elsewhere in Borno State.
“The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area,” army spokesman, Col. Sani Usman, said in a statement to AFP news agency. He added that 22 “terrorists” were killed in the operations and they had retrieved some of the group’s weapons and a motorcycle.
The rescue came on the same day that the radical Islamists kidnapped 16 women, including two girls, from the northeastern state of Adamawa.
“We received reports of the kidnap of 14 women and two girls by gunmen believed to be Boko Haram insurgents near Sabon Garin Madagali village”, Adamawa State police spokesman, Othman Abubakar, told AFP.
The group, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and rebranded itself as the Islamic State West Africa Province in 2015, has killed thousands and displaced millions of Nigerians in a seven-year-long insurgency that attempted to create a radical Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria.
The insurgency has also affected surrounding countries, drawing in Cameroon, Chad and Niger into the conflict.
-AFP