Increase font size Decrease font size Reset font size

First of 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram found

2016-05-19
ABUJA: The first of more than 200 schoolgirls missing for over two years after they were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in Chibok in northeast Nigeria has been found, a parents` group and local ofHcials said on Wednesday.

Lawan Zannah, secretary of an association of parents of the missing girls, said teenager Amina Ali was found on Tuesday near the Sambisa forest close to the border with Cameroon.

`She was carrying a baby but I do not know whether it is a boy or girl,` Zannah said by phone from Chibok.

Hoses Tsambido, chairman of the Chibol< Community in the capital Abuja, confirmed the discovery but did not provide details.

`It is true that one of the Chibok girls has been found and rescued,` he said. `Her name is Amina Ali Darsha.

She was found yesterday in an area of Kulakasha at the fringes of Sambisa forest.

Right now she is with the military in Damboa.

Amina was sitting in a military vehicle at the area commander`s residence in Chibok, Zannah said. He was not allowed to question her beyond exchanging greetings in their local language, Kibaku, he added.

Boko Haram militants captured a total of 276 girls in a raid on their schoolin Chibok in April 2014.

Dozens of them escaped in the initial melee but more than 200 remained unaccounted for. Three mothers of abductees said they recognised their daughters in a video released in April.

The insurgents have killed an estimated 15,000 people and kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children in their six-year campaign to carve out a socalled `caliphate` in northeast Nigeria.

Zannah said he had first heard of Amina`s rescue from Yakubu Nkeki, chairman of the parents association, who had received a call from members of a vigilante group in Chibok saying they had found one of the missing girls.

Borno state governor Kashim Shettima told reporters Amina was on her way to the state capital, Maiduguri.

The rescue will give a boost to President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler who had made crushing the Boko Haram insurgency a central pillar of his campaign for the leadership of Africa`s most populous nation.

-Reuters