Second Chibok girl rescued two years after Boko Haram kidnap, Nigerian army spokesman says
Six of the 219 girls are thought to have died during the long period of captivity but now two have been rescued
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Your support makes all the difference.Another of the kidnapped Chibok girls has been rescued, the second since a group of 276 schoolgirls was captured by Boko Haram in 2014, a spokesman for the Nigerian army has said.
Army spokesman Sani Usman released the information in a message carried by PR Nigeria, which releases government statements.
He said more details about the operation would be provided later.
The first of the Chibok girls to be rescued said the vast majority of her classmates are still "alive and well".
Amina Ali Nkeki was found by a vigilante patrol on Tuesday, 17 May, in the Sambisa Forest, where the jihadi group has hidden the girls since they were kidnapped in a raid on a school in April 2014.
Six of the 219 girls have died during the long period of captivity, activists quoted Amina as saying, but the rest are still being held at a “heavily guarded” Boko Haram outpost in the forest.
Activists with the Bring Back Our Girls campaign said Amina, who is now 19 years old, was found with a one-year-old baby and taken to a military facility in Borno state to be debriefed.
The capture of the Chibok girls on the night of the 14 April 2014 sparked an international reaction, with people around the world uniting behind the #BringBackOurGirls cause.
Militants raided a school in the middle of the night, loading 276 girls into trucks and driving away into the forest.
Dozens managed to escape in the first few hours after their kidnap, some by jumping off the moving lorries.
With the information provided by Amina, it appears there are now 212 girls still alive in Boko Haram captivity.
At the end of last year, the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari sparked controversy by claiming the militant group was "technically defeated", though the Chibok girls were still missing.
Terror attacks claimed by the jihadists continued, however, and Mr Buhari was forced to defend his statement. In February, he claimed he had meant Boko Haram “can no longer mobilise enough forces to attack police and army barracks and destroy aircraft like they used to”.
Earlier this month, CNN broadcast a video which appeared to show a group of the schoolgirls still alive. Reportedly shot by militants on Christmas Day 2015, its veracity was confirmed by a number of the 15 girls' parents.
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