OAN Staff Addie Davis
9:00 AM – Monday, June 8, 2026
Roughly four hundred captives were freed after being abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist organization in Nigeria.
Disputed reports exist about the details of their release, with the Nigerian Army taking credit through an “unprecedented intelligence led rescue operation” after weeks of preparation, according to a statement from military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Haruna M Sani.
Sani claimed in a Sunday social media post that the operation freed 360 people who were being “held in captivity under harsh conditions.”
Boko Haram reportedly were holding them in a stronghold of the Mandara Mountains of the southern Borno State in the northeast region of the country.
A local group, the Borno South Youth Alliance (BOSYA), however, claimed that it brokered the release of the abductees, giving a higher number of 416 people. In a Facebook post, the BOSYA said that others, including “government boys,” were taking credit for their efforts.
Sani reported that two infants died, saying they “succumbed to exhaustion occasioned by the extremely challenging mountainous terrain and the hardships endured during their prolonged captivity.” The others were taken to safe locations where they could receive medical and humanitarian care, he stated.
Since 2009, the jihadist terror group has led an insurgency in the West African nation, primarily focused in the northeast, according to the United Nations (UN). Over two million people remain displaced since then, and more than 40,000 have been killed, the UN claimed.
The same group, Boko Haram, is also responsible for the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in 2014, an event that garnered international outrage.
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