Nigerian officials revealed yesterday that more than 60 girls and young women abducted by the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram two weeks ago have managed to escape.

Security forces and federal government officials had previously denied reports of the mass abduction from three villages in the north-east state of Borno on June 22.

Chibok local government chairman Pogu Bitrus said that he had sent a representative to meet the escapees and their families at the hospital in Lassa, a town in the neighbouring Damboa local government area.

In Borno’s capital Maiduguri, vigilante leader Abbas Gava said that the young women had escaped while their captors were engaged in a major attack on a military barracks and police headquarters in Damboa town.

Boko Haram drew international condemnation for its abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok town on April 15. 

Some 219 of those girls are still missing.