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Second Nigerian ‘Chibok Girl’ Freed in a Week, Seven Years After Abduction


FILE - Names of missing Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 are displayed on the fifth anniversary of their abduction, in Abuja, Nigeria, April 14, 2019. One captive, Hassana Adamu, was freed this week, officials said Aug. 14, 2021.
FILE - Names of missing Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 are displayed on the fifth anniversary of their abduction, in Abuja, Nigeria, April 14, 2019. One captive, Hassana Adamu, was freed this week, officials said Aug. 14, 2021.

A second young woman abducted seven years ago from the town of Chibok by Boko Haram militants was freed this week, Borno state's governor said Saturday.

The abduction of about 270 teenagers in the northeastern town in 2014 sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls.

The army handed over Hassana Adamu, along with her two children, to Governor Babagana Zulum on Saturday, one week after his office announced that another of the victims had been freed and reunited with her parents.

Adamu, like the other recently freed "Chibok girl," as the victims became known, "presented herself to the Nigerian army," the governor's office said.

Photos shared by his office showed a shell-shocked-looking young woman, in a pink striped hijab, speaking to the governor with her two small children, flanked by military officers.

Eighty-two of the victims were freed in 2017 after mediation, adding to 24 who were released or found. A few others have escaped or been rescued, but just more than 110 remain missing.

Earlier this week, the army said that more than 1,000 Boko Haram members and their families had recently surrendered because of "the intense pressure from troops' sustained offensive actions."

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau died in May following a battle with rival Islamist group Islamic State West Africa Province.

ISWAP, the regional affiliate of Islamic State, has since sought to absorb Shekau's fighters and unify the groups, which during Shekau's tenure fought one another for control of territory in northeast Nigeria and around Lake Chad.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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