Nigeria: Army frees women and child hostages of Boko Haram

Nigeria's army says it has rescued dozens of kidnapped women and children held captive by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram.

In a statement late yesterday, the army said it had cleared Boko Haram camps in northeastern Borno state.

The army did not say where the women and children had been kidnapped from or their condition.

Hundreds of hostages have been freed from Boko Haram captivity this year but none of the 219 girls abducted in April 2014 from a school in Chibok were among those rescued.

Nigeria's homegrown Islamic extremist group has used dozens of girls and women in recent suicide bombings in Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, raising fears it is using kidnap victims.