Nigerian troops rescued 200 girls and 93 women on Tuesday, but it it is not clear if any of those freed are the schoolgirls kidnapped a year ago.

Nigerian Defense Department spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade told VOA’s Chris Stein the abductees were found at three camps in a stronghold of the Boko Haram extremist group.

Olukolade said the area is one of the last remaining Boko Haram havens, after the military earlier this year chased the Islamist group out of towns and villages it had captured. He said the camps have since been destroyed by the military.

Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls near the northern village of Chibok in April 2014, causing an international outcry.

Diplomats and intelligence officials say they believe at least some of the girls were being held in the forest about 100 kilometers from Chibok, although U.S. reconnaissance drones have failed to find them.

A Nigerian army spokesman said the Chibok schoolgirls were not among those rescued Tuesday.  

The United Nations special envoy for global education Gordon Brown welcomed the news saying, “The rescue of 200 girls, wherever they come from, is to be welcomed.” He urged the Nigerian government to “bring an end to the abductions and kidnappings and work to ensure all of those who have been taken by Boko Haram are set free.”

Boko Haram is a militant Islamist group. The name translates to “Western education is sin” in the local Hausa language.

The group has said its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Nigeria, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south.
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