Nigeria’s Chibok girls begin rehabilitation in capital

ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigerian officials say the 82 young women released by Boko Haram extremists this month are now joining those already freed in a special rehabilitation program.

Aisha Alhassan, minister of women’s affairs and social development, said Tuesday that the women will attend months of remedial studies. They will have doctors and nurses available to help them heal from the trauma of three years in captivity.

Some have criticized how the freed women have remained in Nigeria’s capital instead of rejoining their families. But Alhassan says they are in Abuja “with their full consent.”

The young women will not be returning to rural Chibok, where they were abducted from school in 2014. Officials say they will be placed in other schools in September.

Nearly 300 schoolgirls were seized in the mass abduction.