Over 60 Woman and Girls Escape Boko Haram In Nigeria

While their captors were attacking a military base near Damboa, Nigeria on Friday, more than sixty woman and girls managed to escape a Boko Haram encampment.

A local vigilante told journalists he had “received an alert from my colleagues… that about 63 of the abducted women and girls had made it back home”.

“They took the bold step when their abductors moved out to carry out an operation,” he said.

The news was confirmed by a high-level security source in the state capital of Maiduguri. 

The escapees were among the 68 women and girls who were abducted last month in north-eastern Borno state. The 200 schoolgirls who were abducted in Borno’s Chibok in April, are still being held in captivity.

A force of 200 Boko Haram terrorists stormed the base, Friday night, killing 20 people, but they also lost about 50 members.

Sources said they initially had an advantage destroying the police station and some other building and killing some police officers,  including the District Police Officer before the soldiers came to repel them off.

A source from the town said  that over 50 terrorists were killed in the confrontation with the military, insisting that 12 soldiers, 4 policemen and four civilians were lost in the attack which saw the Divisional Police Headquarters, market, shops, houses and vehicles destroyed.

He told journalists that: “About 200 heavy armed gunmen in  Toyota Hilux vehicles attacked Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State.”

In May, Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, offered to release more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by his fighters, in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners, but the Nigerian government rejected the deal.