Nigeria: Recovery of third "Chibok girl" within space of a month

The Nigerian army has found another one of the so-called "Chibok girls" who were kidnapped by Boko Haram eight years ago. The recovery is the third in recent weeks, military officials said Wednesday.

Ruth Bitrus was among 276 schoolgirls aged 12-17 who were abducted from their boarding school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria in 2014.

Christopher Musa, the commander of troops in the region, presented 24-year-old Ruth Bitrus, along with her two-year-old son to journalists in front of a military barracks.

Musa did not say when the Chibok woman was found. The young woman, who was 16 when she was kidnapped, escaped at night and walked for three days through the bush before reaching the town of Bama and approaching troops.

Last month, two former Chibok "schoolgirls" were found separately after fleeing the Sambisa Forest, a significant hideout for jihadists.

Of the 276 schoolgirls abducted in 2014, 57 had managed to escape, and another 80 had been exchanged for Boko Haram commanders in negotiations with the authorities.

Other girls were later found, but more than a hundred remain missing.

Since the kidnapping, many other schools and universities have been attacked in northern Nigeria in recent years, some by militants, but mostly by criminal groups which engage in mass kidnapping for ransom.

The militant insurgency in the northeast has lasted 13 years, leaving 40,000 dead and 2.2 million displaced.