Free At Last

"This [Thursday's rescue] set (is) in addition to the previous individuals earlier rescued during the ongoing operation in the area."
"The assault on the forest is continuing from various fronts and efforts are concentrated on rescuing hostages . . . and destroying all terrorists camps and facilities in the forest."
Nigerian military statement

Now that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's term is concluding he has finally tasked the country's military with cleaning out the Boko Haram threat from his hard-pressed country. He now, finally, claims that the stronghold for the terrorist militia, the Sambisa Forest, is the last remaining refuge for the jihadists, pledging to "Hand over a Nigeria completely free of terrorist strongholds" to the incoming government.

Well, good for him, if rather tardy. Had he acted six years ago when the movement was in its fledgling stages, many lives would have been saved.

The terror that engulfed peoples' lives, knowing that their government was doing nothing to defend them from the horrendously violent attacks by Boko Haram, desperately attempting to forge their own teams of defenders from among their village men, simply marked them out for even more vicious treatment, as those villages known to have assembled protection teams saw all their men slaughtered in Boko Haram deadly raids.

The men killed, the women and children taken as slaves, and their villages burnt to the ground. This is the neglect that the most populous, oil-wealthy country in Africa surrendered to. Becoming dependent on its neighbouring states to mount offensives against Boko Harm when the jihadi groups spilled over the Nigerian border into their areas, threatening their civilians, and following the refugees camped out in fear and terror just inside their borders.

Dr. Oby Ezekwesili expresses support about the rescue of some women and girls from Sambisa forest while a Nigerian protest group continues their sit-in about the girls that are still missing from Chibok, in Abuja, Nigeria, April 29, 2015.
Now the Nigerian military, known for its ineffectiveness, for its corruption where military leaders siphoned off military operating funds, leaving their soldiers without weapons, has been prodded into action. The country's incoming president-elect has perhaps inspired the fear of cleaning up the corruption and removing its useless chief military staff in full knowledge of their commitment to their own bottom line rather than the security and protection of the country, as a former general (and president) himself.

For the time being, the military has finally moved itself to tackle clearing out the jihadist camps, freeing women and children in the process. The first photographs of what the military claims to be some of the hundreds of women and children that its troops have feed in recent days from the Sambisa Forest in the midst of heavy combat have been released. The girls and women are being screened to discern which villages they have come from.

A military spokesman mentioned that some of the women appear to have surrendered to the Stockholm syndrome of sympathy with their captors after having lived with them under forced marriages for months. The possibility that some women had joined Boko Haram of their own volition, or whether some are fighters' family members has also been entertained. Women, children and babies are held to be generally physically healthy in appearance.

A military medic attends to a freed hostage in Sambisa forest, northeastern Nigeria, after rescue operations earlier this week. Photograph: Rex Shutterstock

A young military medic wearing blue rubber gloves and a surgical mask was photographed checking some of the children. Some of the women and girls now freed are pregnant. Last Wednesday, the Nigerian military reported its first rescue of about 300 women and children, where some of the women were using rifles to fire at the soldiers -- before they were disarmed and taken into custody -- as they were taught to do by Boko Haram.

An undated handout picture released by the Nigerian army shows a soldier standing with a group of women and children rescued in an operation against the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.  (Photo: Nigerian army via European Pressphoto Agency)