Nigeria’s army said late on Sunday that it rescued 178 people held by the Boko Haram sect in Borno State, the heartland of the insurgency.
Army spokesman Col. Tukur Gusau, said in an emailed statement that 101 of the those freed were children, 67 were women and the rest were men.
He added that a Boko Haram commander had also been captured and several militant camps were cleared around the town of Bama, about 70 km southeast of the state capital Maiduguri.
Boko Haram has been waging a six-year insurgency in Nigeria’s northeast in an attempt to establish an Islamist state adhering to strict sharia law, Reuters says.
Nigeria’ Air Force also said it helped ground troops repel an attack by Boko Haram around the village of Bitta on the southern edge of the Sambisa forest reserve, a stronghold of the militant group.
Bitta is also west of Gwoza, a town near the Cameroonian border that was believed to be the militants’ headquarters until a major offensive was launched earlier this year by combined Nigeria, Nigerien and Chadian forces.
No comments:
Post a Comment