One of the missing Chibok schoolgirls has been found in Nigeria, the first to be rescued since their capture two years ago.
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“Meanwhile, the supposed husband is undergoing further investigation at Joint Intelligence Centre”.
Hosea Abana Tsambido, the chairman of the Chibok community in the capital, Abuja, told the BBC that Amina had been found after venturing into the forest to search for firewood.
“She met her parents, who recognised their daughter, before she was taken to the military base in Damboa”, Mr Ayuba Alamson, a community leader in Chibok, said yesterday.
“Early information from her was that the rest of the girls are alive and well and, you know, are holed up in Sambisa forest under Boko Haram fortification”, said Olatunji Olarewanju, from the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.
Nigeria’s military tried to claim her rescue.
Usman said that the girl was rescued with her one-year old child, named Safiya.
The terrorist group Boko Haram took 276 schoolgirls from their school dormitories in Chibok, Nigeria, on the night of April 14, 2014.
A Nigerian government report tried to claim credit for the rescue, saying she was among a group of people rescued by army troops at Baale near Damboa and using another girl’s name. The military described him as “a suspected Boko Haram terrorist”.
“Children in this situation typically require medical assistance and psycho-social support to help them cope with what they have been through while they were in captivity”, Helene Sandbu Reng, spokeswoman of the U.N. Children’s Fund, said in a statement noting the agency could not verify that one of the Chibok girls is free.
Nkeki might get to meet the President of Nigeria in the capital Abuja on Thursday along with her parents.
DAILY POST had reported that Shettima and other government officials, after news of the girl’s freedom filtered in, quickly prepared to received the teenager. Dozens escaped in the first hours, some hanging on to tree branches from the back of an open truck, but 219 remained missing.
Nkeki said Amina’s release had brought “very deep joy” to a place that has suffered so much and which has become a symbol of the conflict.
After an exam by air force medics the girl and her baby were handed over to the governor of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, officials said.
The girls’ kidnapping sparked global outrage, with Michelle Obama, Malala Yousafzai and a slew of other high-profile figures lending their weight to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.
The Rev. Enoch Mark, whose two daughters are among the missing, said the news brought renewed hope to the parents of the Chibok girls.
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But Nigeria’s government has proven powerless to recover the girls, most of whom were Christian, and are believed to have been forced by their captors to convert to Islam.
