Lagos--Many of the women and girls rescued from Boko Haram are traumatised and showing signs of depression, with psychological counselling urgently needed as they recover in camps in northeast Nigeria, relief officials said Monday.
"For some of them, who are really showing signs of trauma, we need to make them realise that this is not the end of life," said Sa'ad Bello, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) camp coordinator in Adamawa state.
"They need trauma counselling and psycho-social support... to develop coping mechanisms," he told AFP, adding that many of the female hostages appeared to be suffering from serious depression, likely after enduring sustained abuse by their Islamists captors.
A total of 275 women and children were brought to a camp in Adamawa's capital Yola, at the weekend, following a military operation to free them in Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold.
NEMA spokesman Manzo Ezekiel said a priority was to provide "trauma management so they're not treated as outcasts when they go back to society".
Two women described how militant fighters tried to force them into marrying rebels after they were captured and how their escape turned to tragedy as at least three women were killed by landmines.
Others were crushed by tanks as they hid in the undergrowth of the dense forest to avoid shelling and firing between the soldiers and Boko Haram.
Ezekiel said the authorities were keen to avoid the women being stigmatised in religiously conservative northern Nigeria, with reports Boko Haram may have kept some as sex slaves.
Medical tests would not only check for conditions such as malaria but sexually transmitted diseases, Ezekiel said.
AFP
