Boko Haram May Have Used Chibok Girls As Shields During Sambisa Attack – Army

SAN FRANCISCO, December 28, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Army on Wednesday disclosed that Boko Haram fighters fleeing an attack on their base last week might have used some of the Chibok schoolgirls as human shields to prevent being fired upon by fighter jets during the attack on Sambisa Forest.

The Theatre Commander of the military campaign, Operation Lafiya Dole, Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor, at a news conference in Maiduguri, showed newsmen aerial footage he said was filmed during attack on Sambisa Forest that showed the terrorists moving with women and children.

Stating that “the haggard fighters were just using them as a shield,” Irabor said, “that is why we did not engage them from the air. We had always believed and hoped that going into the Sambisa Forest would afford us the opportunity to get the remaining Chibok girls. What we can't tell is whether those women we can see were the Chibok girls.”

Recall that Boko Haram terrorists had kidnapped over 200 female students from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014.

President Muhammadu Buhari noted on Saturday that the terrorists' last enclave in Sambisa forest had been captured.

Irabor stated that the military was pursuing those who fled, adding that 1,240 people, suspected to be militants, their relatives or sympathisers, had been arrested within the last week.