Nearly 700 kidnap victims have been freed from Boko Haram's stronghold in the northeastern Sambisa Forest.
Around 214 women freed from the Islamist Boko Haram militants are pregnant, Chief of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) was cited as saying by the local Nigerian media.
“Already, many of them are undergoing screening for various diseases, infections including HIV/AIDS and about 214 of those already screened were discovered to be at various stages of pregnancies, some visibly pregnant and some just tested pregnant; but we are supporting all of them with various levels of care to stabilize them,” said UNFPA Nigeria executive director Babatunde Oshotimehin speaking in Lagos.
Oshotimehin further said, “Some of the children that were freed along with the women, it was discovered, were born in the forest and had never been out in the open until their release by the Nigerian Army."
Nearly 700 kidnap victims have been freed from Boko Haram's stronghold in the northeastern Sambisa Forest since Tuesdaylast week, with the latest group of 234 women and children liberated on Friday.
Initial indications are that none of more than 200 schoolgirls snatched from their school dormitories in Chibok town in April 2014 were among the three groups released last week. While Boko Haram has been kidnapping girls and women and turning them into cooks, sex slaves and human shields even before the attack on Chibok, it was that one incident that drew global attention to the six-year-old insurgency.
It is not known how many people Boko Haram has abducted but Amnesty International estimates the insurgents, who are intent on bringing western Africa under Islamist rule, has taken more than 2,000 women and girls captive since the start of 2014.
Boko Haram is thought to have killed thousands of people but Nigerian troops alongside armies from neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger have won back swathes of territory from them in the last couple of months.
Last year, the group ran amok in an area bigger than Belgium but a counter-attack launched in January has pushed them into the Sambisa Reserve. While the Nigerian army is confident it has the group cornered, a final push to clear them from the area has been curtailed by landmines.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who relinquishes power later in May after his election defeat to Muhammadu Buhari, has promised to hand over a Nigeria "free of terrorist strongholds".
With agency inputs
Also Read: Nigerian army takes 275 Boko Haram victims to refugee camp
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