A girl kidnapped by Islamist militants from a school in the Nigerian town of Chibok three years ago has escaped her captors, an aide to the Nigerian president told media on Wednesday.
Femi Adesina, the president’s adviser on media, told the BBC broadcaster the girl came across government troops after escaping Boko Haram, an Islamist group active in the region.
The girl was one of the 276 female students that were abducted by Boko Haram gunmen from a state-run secondary school in 2014, Adesina confirmed.
Of those kidnapped, 57 escaped over the first few months, 24 were either released or found over the next three years, and 82 were freed earlier this month in a prisoner exchange.
Boko Haram militants launched large-scale attacks in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 and bombed a UN office in Abuja in 2011, killing 21 people. They have kidnapped thousands of people during the years of insurgency to fund their efforts at establishing an Islamic "caliphate" in the region.