Nigerian Military Rescue 234 Women And Girls From Boko Haram, Many Women And Girls Pregnant

They are the lost and forgotten of the world these days — the many girls taken from schoolhouses and villages throughout Nigeria by the extremist group Boko Haram. Many of the girls were mere children, sold into sex slavery or kept by the extremists for their own sexual abuse. Boasts of “new life” from the extremists approximately nine months after the girls were taken suggested that some of the girls had borne the children of their captors. The media reported the news to a horrified world, but the plight of the women faded as there seemed to be not much military interest in finding them.

That changed Saturday when the Nigerian military infiltrated a Boko Haram forest stronghold in the northeast, where they were able to rescue 234 women and girls and transported them to safety. That number brings the number of rescued women from Boko Haram this week to 667. The Nigerian Department of Defense released a worldwide statement on Twitter declaring their success.

“FLASH: Another set of 234 women and children were rescued through the Kawuri and Konduga end of the #Sambisa Forest on Thursday.”

President Goodluck Jonathan, whose term ends this month, also declared success in rescuing women that have been deftly and systematically taken by a fierce and prevalent enemy.

“The forest is the last holdout of the Islamic militants and I pledge to hand over a Nigeria completely free of terrorist strongholds.”

That is a bold statement for a country who has been terrorized by the extremists for the past six years. Extreme levels of terrorism and kidnapping began in 2013, but Nigerian officials had difficulty controlling the terrorists. The current rescue came after the Nigerian army deployed ground troops following weeks of effective air raids on the Sambisa Forest, where a major Boko Haram headquarters was known to be located.

It is known that men and boys have been captured by Boko Haram as well, though the exact numbers are not known. The only people to have been successfully rescued by Nigerian military personnel thus far have been female. It is difficult to infer what this may mean — are the men dead? Sold into slavery? The answers are sure to come as more and more of the rescued captives are able to speak about their horrific situation and months-to-years of brutal torture.

The Associated Press reported that some women shot at their rescuers and were killed, with Boko Haram using them as an armed human shield for its main fighting force against enemy forces. It is still not known if any of the rescued captives are the students kidnapped from a boarding school in Chibok town a year ago — a mass kidnapping that outraged much of the world and left hundreds of parents mourning for their teenaged daughters.

Muhammad Gavi, a spokesman for a self-defense group that fights Boko Haram, said that many of the freed captives are currently pregnant, and several small children were removed from the forest, some that looked emaciated and some that had orange hair, a sign of malnutrition in the Nigerian ethnic group. It is reported that some of the women may have developed Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which captives begin to identify with their captors and subscribe to their ideology, a severe psychological reaction that occurs in order for the captives to survive.

[image credit via globalpost and Nigerian Military/Associated Press]