Nigeria rescues hundreds of women and children from Boko Haram

Military says 338 captives have been rescued in raids on group’s Sambisa Forest stronghold, with 30 militants killed

Nigerian troops have rescued 338 captives, almost all women and children, fromBoko Haram camps in a forest in the north-east of the country, the military has said.A defence headquarters statement on Wednesday said 30 extremists were killed the previous day in raids on two camps on the fringes of the insurgents’ stronghold in Sambisa Forest.

Separately, troops ambushed and killed four suspects on a bombing mission in the north-eastern Adamawa state, it said. Hundreds of people have died in suicide bombing attacks, mainly targeting mosques and markets, in recent months.

The military posted photographs of several guns and ammunition it said were seized in the attacks, along with images of the bodies of alleged insurgents.

Nigerian troops have rescued hundreds of Boko Haram captives this year, but none of the 219 girls kidnapped – more than 50 had earlier escaped – from a school in Chibok. Their mass abduction in April 2014 caused international outrage against the militants and anger at Nigeria’s government for failing to rescue them.

The kidnapping highlighted military and government failures in fighting the six-year-old uprising that has left an estimated 20,000 people dead and driven 2.3 million from their homes, according to Amnesty International and the United Nations.

The former president, Goodluck Jonathan, was replaced by the former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari in March, partly due to the inability to find the kidnapped girls and corruption scandals.

Earlier this year, troops from Nigeria and Chad forced Boko Haram out of a large area of north-eastern Nigeria where the group, which is allied with Islamic State, had declared an Islamic caliphate.

Buhari has promised to halt the uprising by December. Nigeria’s homegrown extremist group has responded with a relentless campaign of suicide bombings in northern, north-eastern and central Nigeria, as well as in the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

The deployment of a multinational force to tackle Boko Haram has been delayed for several months without explanation.