(photo credit: See Li )
From Reuters:
(Reuters) - Nigeria's army has rescued 200 girls and 93 women during a military operation to wrest back the Sambisa Forest from the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, it said on Twitter on Tuesday.
"Troops this afternoon rescued 200 girls and 93 women from Sambisa Forest. We cannot confirm if the Chibok girls are in this group," it said, adding Nigerian troops had also destroyed three camps run by the militants there.
Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls near the northern village of Chibok in April 2014, causing an international outcry.
Diplomats and intelligence officials say they believed at least some of the girls were being held in the forest about 100 km (60 miles) from Chibok, although U.S. reconnaissance drones failed to find them.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Fingers crossed...
I will update this post as more details come in. Follow on Twitter at #BringBackOurGirls.
Update 1: From AFP:
The Nigerian Army announced the rescue on Twitter:
DEFENCE HQ NIGERIA (@DefenceInfoNG) tweeted at 3:10pm - 28 Apr 15:
FLASH: Troops this afternoon rescued 200 girls & 93 women from #Sambisa Forest. We cannot confirm if the #ChibokGirls are in this group /1 (https://twitter.com/...)
Update 2:
From AnnetteK in the comments, who found this Reuters tweet:
BREAKING: Nigerian girls rescued in army operation are not Chikbok school girls abducted last year: army spokesman
5:04 PM - 28 Apr 20
Well, it's still great news, obviously. But WTF - how many groups of 200 schoolgirls does Boko Haram currently have?
Update 3:
Some tweets from BBC reporter @sampiranty:
Military colonel tells me these are NOT Chibok girls. These are girls kidnapped from 'Damboa, Madagali & Gumsiri' #BokoHaram #Nigeria
Senator Ndune 'Hundreds of women more than Chibok girls have been kidnapped so they could be any of them' #BokoHaram #Nigeria
Military colonel 'We still have another 50sq km to go in Sambisa so having already found these girls is a great sign' #Nigeria #BokoHaram
http://www.twitter.com/...