adminAbuja — Nigeria’s top brass warned yesterday against premature declarations on 200 girls rescued from Boko Haram after the army said they were not the same girls kidnapped by the militants in an especially notorious incident in Chibok.The military announced on Tuesday evening that it had rescued 200 girls and 93 women from the Islamist militants’ Sambisa Forest stronghold in the north-eastern state of Borno.
Defence spokesperson Chris Olukolade said the former hostages were being screened to determine their identities and said it was “not yet confirmed” if the Chibok schoolgirls were among them.
He said yesterday: “It’s not wise or safe to quickly declare that there are no Chibok girls among them. You never can say. One or two could be among them.
“The fact is that that number has to be screened. We must’ve heard from them saying where they came from. For now, they’re still being screened to ascertain their identities.”
Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok, Borno state, on April 14 last year. Fifty-seven escaped in the hours that followed but 219 have been held since then in an incident which provoked worldwide condemnation.
Any rescue would be welcomed not just in Nigeria, where supporters have maintained a daily vigil for their release in the capital, Abuja, and around the world.
But army spokesman Sani Usman appeared to dash hopes of their liberation.
“Naturally the Chibok girls will come to people’s minds when they hear that 200 girls have been rescued from Boko Haram in Sambisa Forest. “But from our preliminary investigations the rescued girls aren’t those abducted from Chibok in April last year.”
Usman said the vast former colonial-era game reserve housed several Boko Haram camps and the military had so far destroyed only four.
Troops were working to establish the identities of the girls and women as well as when and where they were abducted, he said.
At least 2,000 women and girls have been kidnapped since the start of last year, according to Amnesty International. “Our operation is ongoing and we hope to rescue all these girls and women, including the Chibok girls from Boko Haram, in due course,” Usman added.
“But now we can state clearly that these girls aren’t Chibok girls.”
Meanwhile, the Niger government said on Tuesday it had lost 46 soldiers and 28 civilians in a Boko Haram attack on a Lake Chad island at the weekend, the country’s heaviest losses yet since it joined a regional offensive against the militants.
Interior Minister Hassoumi Massaoudou said “156 terrorists” were also killed in the assault on an army base on the island of Karamga on Saturday.
The Niger authorities declared three days of national mourning from yesterday.
Speaking on public radio after visiting the island, Massaoudou said 46 troops had died in the dawn attack, nine were injured and 32 were missing, while “28 island residents were murdered”. He said the Niger army had since retaken control of the island.
It is the first official toll given by Niamey after the battle for the island with the Nigeria-based Islamist group. A Chadian security source said Niger had lost 48 soldiers and another 36 were missing.
Niger, along with Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, has recently launched a joint offensive to end Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency, which has claimed 13,000 lives and caused about 1.5 million people to flee their homes.
“The village has been completely devastated,” the minister said, adding that the country was “horrified” by the heavy toll, one of the biggest setbacks yet in the regional fight back against the Nigeria-based Islamists. — AFP
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