1st group of freed women brought to safety in Nigeria

The first group of nearly 300 Nigerian girls and women released from Boko Haram were brought by the military to the safety of a refugee camp in the country's northeast on Saturday evening.

More than 677 females have been released this week, as the Nigerian military continues its campaign to push the Islamic extremists out their last remaining strongholds in the Sambisa Forest.

As darkness fell in this dusty part of Yola, a convoy of armed vehicles brought the women and young children crammed into the open backs of trucks to a school that has been turned into a refugee camp for people displaced by Boko Haram.

The women had been traveling for three days from the forest where the military says it rescued them from captivity by the extremists. Two soldiers were injured when the convoy hit a land mine, said an officer who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.

Looking bewildered, some even in shock, the freed women and children lined up for tea and a stew of baobab leaves. Many of the babies had just rags for clothes. The military will turn the care of the women and children over to the National Emergency Management Agency.

Lami Musa, aged 27, was holding her four-day old baby. She said she was abducted by Boko Haram five months ago from Lassa village. "The father of this child was killed by Boko Haram," said Musa. "I don't know where my three other children are."