Nigeria's army rescued 178 people held captive by Boko Haram

The Nigerian military said it has rescued 178 people from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in northern Borno state.

In a statement released on Sunday, spokesman Colonel Tukur Gusau said that 101 of those freed were children and a further 67 were women. The statement did not say if the girls abducted from a school in Chibok in April 2014 were among them.

He added that a Boko Haram commander had also been captured and several militant camps were cleared around the town of Bama, about 70 km south-east of the state capital Maiduguri.

The Nigerian Air Force reported killing "a large number" of militants in repelling an attack on Bitta village, 50 kilometres southwest of the army operations that took place around Bama.

This adds to the 71 people said to have been rescued last week. The Nigerian military has been attacking Boko Haram strongholds in the Northern regions of Nigeria and claims to have made inroads into the militants' territory, though videos from the group deny this.

5,500 CIVILIANS DEAD SINCE 2014

President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to finish with the group and a multinational joint taskforce of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin is being set up in the Chadian capital N’Djamena to tackle Boko Haram.

The force was supposed to start operations on 31 July, but has been postponed due to a lack of funding and political will.

Buhari visited Cameroon this past week in an effort to smooth over differences over cross-border pursuit, and then on to Benin.

The upsurge in Boko Haram’s attacks in northern Cameroon has caused widespread panic and distrust among the population.

Boko Haram has killed some 5,500 civilians in Nigeria since 2014.

More than 200 of the Chibok girls are still missing, more than a year after they were kidnapped from their school in northern Nigeria.

Last October, the government said it had secured an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of the girls taken from Chibok, but Boko Haram subsequently denied this.