Army confirms Chibok girl rescue

The Nigerian Army has confirmed the rescue of a Chibok girl in Sambisa Forest.

The Army spokesman, Sani Usman who confirmed this in a statement said the girl was rescued by Nigerian troops.

Soldiers and civilian vigilantes were deployed at Baale, near the town of Damboa, and “rescued one Miss Amini Ali and a suspected Boko Haram terrorist, Mohammed Hayatu, who claimed to be her husband”, army spokesman Sani Usman said in a statement.

“Both were brought to Headquarters 25 Task Force Brigade Damboa at about 2:30 pm (1330 GMT) today (Wednesday).

“Preliminary investigation shows that she is indeed one of the abducted Chibok Schoolgirls.”

Usman had earlier said only soldiers rescued the teenager and said her name was Falmata Mbalala. Chibok community leaders and activists maintained her name was Amina Ali.

However, Tsambido Hosea Abana, a Chibok community leader in Abuja, claimed that the Amina was rescued by vigilantes from Chibok who were on patrol on Tuesday.

The spokesman said Ali was found with a four-month-old baby girl named Safiya.

“Both the suspected Boko Haram terrorist and the nursing mother have been taken to (the Borno state capital) Maiduguri for further medical attention and screening,” he added.

Boko Haram seized 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote town of Chibok on the night of April 14, 2014.

Fifty-seven managed to escape soon afterwards but 219 had been held ever since.

Ali was taken by the vigilantes to her home town of Mbalala, near Chibok, where she was briefly reunited with her mother and identified by the school’s vice-principal.