Nigeria has freed another 234 women and children from the Sambisa forest, considered a bastion of armed group Boko Haram, the military has said.
The defence headquarters said in a statement on social media website Twitter on Friday that the hostages were rescued on Thursday in the Kawuri and Konduga end of the forest located in the country's north east neighbouring Chad.
The army released the first photos of what it said were some of the hundreds of women and children that troops freed earlier this week in the Sambisa Forest amid heavy combat with Boko Haram.
President Goodluck Jonathan, whose term ends this month, said Thursday that the Sambisa Forest is the last refuge for the Islamic group and he pledged to "hand over a Nigeria completely free of terrorist strongholds."
The military said it is screening the girls and women to find out what villages they came from.
Some women the soldiers tried to rescue 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.
One of Pope Francis’s former popemobiles is being repurposed as a mobile health clinic for children...
Last year was the deadliest for Russian forces since the start of the full-scale war in...
A missile launched by the Houthi rebels in Yemen struck near the main terminal of Israel’s...
