LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – They look calm, subdued. One young woman with a purple traditional hijab covering her head and upper body holds a baby. Few know what horrors they have been through or witnessed.
The military has released the first photos of what it says are some of the hundreds of women and children that troops freed in recent days in the Sambisa Forest amid heavy combat.
President Goodluck Jonathan, whose term ends this month, said Thursday that the Sambisa Forest is the last refuge for the militants and he pledged to “hand over a Nigeria completely free of terrorist strongholds.”
The military says it is screening the girls and women to find out what villages they came from. Some women the soldiers tried to rescue even shot at their rescuers, a military spokesman has said, indicating that some might now identify with Boko Haram after months of captivity and forced marriages. It also remains unclear if some of the women had willingly joined Boko Haram, or are family members of fighters.
The photos, which the military said were taken on Wednesday and Thursday, show 20 or so women, children and babies looking generally healthy physically, though one child is thin.