On Sunday, some of the girls talked with the Associated Press, telling tragic stories of horror and suffering. They recounted how Boko Haram fighters would stone girls to death if Nigerian military rescuers were getting near.
Another woman told of several captives being crushed by a Nigerian military armored vehicle during the rescue, while another three women were blown up by landmines as they tried to escape.
“They didn’t allow us to move an inch,” said one of the freed women, Asabe Umaru, describing her captivity in the forest to reporters. “If you needed the toilet, they followed you. We were kept in one place. We were under bondage.”
The women told of how Boko Haram would kill the older boys and men in front of their families before taking the women and children into the forest. Many of the captured children died from malnutrition and disease, and many of the rescued women said they had been taken captive within the past nine months.
More than 700 women and girls have been rescued from Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa Forest in northern Nigeria since last week. The last group of 234 women and children were rescued on Friday and transported to the Malkohi refugee camp on the outskirts of Yola, the capital of northeastern Adamawa state.
“When we saw the soldiers we raised our hands and shouted for help. Boko Haram who were guarding us started stoning us so we would follow them to another hideout, but we refused because we were sure the soldiers would rescue us,” Umaru, a 24-year-old mother of two, told Reuters.
Critically malnourished infants were put on intravenous drips and others, ravaged from starvation, were given nutrition packs.
From interviews, it was determined the women were from the village of Gumsuri, near Chibok.
None of those interviewed was part of the group of 300 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok a year ago.
