The Nigeria Air Force said it had airlifted rescued hostages held captive by the Boko Haram terrorists in the Sambisa forest to its base in Maiduguri.
The NAF’s Director of Public Relations and Information, AVM Olatokunbo Adesanya, confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday.
Adesanya said that the rescue and airlift of the captives followed concerted air and ground bombardments of remnants of the terrorists and the “capture of Camp Zairo’’.
He said that the NAF medical team had conducted preliminary checks on the rescued hostages and provided them with treatment.
According to him, the rescued hostages who are all looking tired and malnourished, had been fed by the NAF.
He said: “The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, has directed that those with serious medical cases be immediately placed on admission to ensure that they were adequately cared for.
“This is in furtherance of the NAF’s resolute efforts at winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the locals as part of an overall campaign strategy.’’
He said that NAF had been rendering humanitarian services to Internally Displaced Persons in the North-East and other parts of the country as part of its corporate social responsibility.
The Spokesman disclosed that so far, over 300, 000 IDPs had benefited from NAF’s medical outreach programmes nationwide.
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