Rescue of 293 women and girls from Boko Haram captivity gratifying – Gov Shettima

The Borno State Government on Wednesday said the 293 women and girls, rescued from the Boko Haram stronghold in Sambisa Forest, are from Bumsiri Village in Damboa Local Government Area of the state and not from Chibok.

Speaking with journalists yesterday in Maiduguri, the State Commissioner for Information, Dr. Mohammed Bulama, said that the profiling of the 200 girls and 93 women, rescued by the Nigerian military on Tuesday, showed that they were abducted from Bumsiri village.

Bulama, however, commended the Nigerian Army for rescuing the 293 women and girls from captivity, adding that the state government has started making plans to put in place all the necessary structures to rehabilitate and integrate them back into the society.
He said, “These girls and women rescued are still our daughters as much as the Chibok girls and we have to commend the military for liberating them, hoping that the rest will equally be liberated.
“Though everyone had thought they were the Chibok girls because of the hype surrounding the abduction of the girls, but we should not lose sight of the fact that they are as important as the Chibok girls and those that are still in captivity, which we hope would be liberated soon.
“But at the moment, we are looking up to the time the 293 women and girls would be handed to us so that we can begin the process of rehabilitating and reintegrating them back into the society”.
Meanwhile, the Borno State Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media, Mallam Isa Gusau, said the military’s operation that led to the liberation was “gratifying regardless of whether or not the rescued women were part of the over 200 schoolgirls stolen by insurgents at Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014”.