The United States government has assured that though is
taking long to release the abducted Chibok girls from their captives, they are
not abandoned, reports ITRealms.
As such, the American and African forces sent to Cameroon to
fight Boko Haram have, on several occasions, claimed location of clusters of
the schoolgirls kidnapped by the militant group two years ago.
Rescue operations, according to The
New York Times, have not been carried out, because of fears that any
ensuing battle with Boko Haram fighters would put the captives at risk, or
incite some form of retaliation against hostages still being held in other
areas.
The report went on to state that American officials said a
combination of local intelligence, intercepted communications and drone footage
had been used to locate groups of some 276 girls abducted from the Government
Girls Secondary School in the Nigerian town of Chibok two years ago this month.
Some of the girls have since been tracked to Nigeria’s sprawling Sambisa
Forest.
Officials insist that efforts to free the girls have not
been abandoned, insisting that a major concern is the hundreds of other women
and girls who are also held by Boko Haram, captives who are often sexually
assaulted, forced into marriages with their tormentors, and sometimes killed.
Gen. Carter F. Ham, the retired head of the United States
military’s Africa Command said, “You’re not just looking for 200 girls. There
are many, many others who have been taken hostage, and more thousands killed,
and two and a half million people displaced.”
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