It’s only a fraction, but it’s more than 60. >60 is way better than zero.
More than 60 women and girls are reported to have escaped from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, security sources say.
They were among 68 abducted last month near the town of Damboa in north-eastern Borno state.
But some women who made it home said they feared other escapees had been recaptured, villagers told the BBC.
Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from Borno’s Chibok town in April.
There’s some disagreement about how they escaped.
18 women who have made it back to villages around Damboa over the last three days – and are being treated at a hospital in Lasa village – said the militants were asleep when they escaped, a Lasa resident told the BBC Hausa Service.
Other relatives told the BBC that the women recounted how they climbed over a wall on Thursday night into Friday morning – and immediately began running away.
Dogs then started barking, which woke up the militants who started shooting at them, the women told the villagers.
They said they feared a significant number of them were subsequently recaptured.
“They’re looking very distressed and very lean… they have gone through a very terrible ordeal,” the Lasa resident told the BBC.
So it’s not actually a picnic to be kidnapped and enslaved by Boko Haram.
Cue George Will telling us they went off willingly with B.H. but decided they’d rather have the status of victimhood now in five, four, …
If these five dozen-plus women could escape and find their way home in the dark, why haven’t all the drones and other military resources the US reportedly sent to northern Nigeria two month ago spotted enough clues to locate BH camps so far?
It is possible they do have some idea where they are and aren’t speaking in order not to tip off BH. However knowing, if they do know, is somewhat different than rescuing especially since the Nigerian national government has dragged its feet. How to accomplish the rescues without getting some, many, or all of the women killed is one of the issues.