FOLLOWING—THE latest rescue of additional 234 women and children by
the Nigerian Army from the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, indicated, yesterday,
that a sizeable number of the rescued girls were visibly pregnant, even as
unofficial reports put the latest number of pregnant girls in one of the camps
in Borno as at last Saturday at 214.
Giving this indication in Lagos, Executive
Director, UNFPA, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, also disclosed that in the last
one year, the organization had taken deliveries of over 16,000 pregnancies in
the troubled North East part of the country.
Osotimehin, while giving update of
the response to the rehabilitation of the rescued women and children,
said the organization, in anticipation of the magnitude of the problem on hand,
had put in place a formidable team in collaboration with the Federal and state
governments, to first restore the dignity of the girls, who, he said, are
facing severe psychosocial trauma.
