According to security sources, two of the three Aid Workers who were kidnapped in northeastern Nigeria have been discovered safe, a week after they were abducted.
The Nigerian Aid workers were abducted on April 25 from Ngala, Borno State, close to the Cameroon border. They are employees of the American non-profit organisation FHI 360.
“FHI 360 has been informed that Nigerian authorities have recovered two of our abducted team members,” FHI 360, spokesperson Christy Delafield told newsmen.
She didn’t specify whether the relief workers were saved or if they managed to flee. Along with a third aid worker, two contractors were also kidnapped and are still missing.
“We continue to urge the unconditional, immediate and safe return of those still missing,” said Delafield.
It was unclear who was behind the kidnapping, but the area is home to both Boko Haram and ISWAP, which is connected to the Islamic State group and was responsible for the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok.
The newsmen were informed on Sunday that the humanitarian workers had been rescued from an ISWAP camp in Gargash village by two security sources who wished to remain anonymous.
“It was an intensive operation involving troops and CJTF (anti-jihadist militia)… which led to the killing of a substantial number of the terrorists,” one of the security sources told newsmen.
“Two of the kidnapped staff identified themselves to the troops while the third staff and the two security guards kidnapped along with them fled into the bush to escape the fighting and are yet to be located,” he said.
According to the second security source who also confirmed the rescue, “More than a dozen guns and three trucks were seized from the terrorists during the operation.”
As a new president is about to be sworn in this month following an election that the opposition has challenged, insecurity is a major concern in Africa’s most populous country.
Since a terrorist insurgency started in the northeast in 2009, more than 40,000 people have died there, according to the UN. More than two million people are now without a place to live.
Nigerian troops are stationed in the region at “super camps” but raids continue in rural areas, with militants launching attacks from their forest enclaves.
As a result of the violence’s expansion into nearby Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, a regional military alliance has been formed to combat the extremists.