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Fresh hopes for Chibok school girls as rescued student meets Buhari- 20-May-2016
Abuja: The first of 219 abducted Chibok schoolgirls to be found after more than two years in Boko Haram captivity today met Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, with hopes raised more of the girls can be freed.
Amina Ali, who was discovered by civilian vigilantes and troops on Tuesday, flew from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, in northeast Nigeria, to the capital, Abuja, with her mother, Binta.
Both covered their faces with headscarves as they walked into the president's office at his official Aso Rock residence, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
They were accompanied by Borno state governor Kashim Shettima and federal government officials, including the national security advisor, defence minister and chief of defence staff.
Boko Haram fighters seized 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in the remote Borno town of Chibok on April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven escaped in the hours that followed.
The abduction provoked global outrage and brought worldwide attention to the conflict but until Amina's release, there were few indications of the girls' whereabouts or possible release.
Community leaders said she told her relatives at a brief reunion at the family home in Mbalala, near Chibok, that most of the girls were still being held in Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest enclave.
But the 19-year-old was quoted as saying that "six were already dead".
Nigeria's military has been conducting operations in the former game reserve for weeks in the hope of flushing out militants and destroying Islamist camps in the sprawling semi-desert scrubland.
The abducted girls have long been thought to have been taken to the forest. Satellite imagery provided by the United States and Britain reportedly identified the location of some of the students.
But Britain's former ambassador to Nigeria, Andrew Pocock, claimed in a Sunday Times article in March that Nigeria's military failed to act on the intelligence.
Former president Goodluck Jonathan's delayed response to the abduction and overall handling of the insurgency was seen as a major factor in his election defeat to Buhari last year.
Amina was brought to Maiduguri by air force helicopter from Damboa 90 kilometres away with her four-month-old baby and a man she said was her husband, according to the military.
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