The Nigerian army says it has rescued more women and children that had been abducted by Nigeria’s militant group Boko Haram in an operation that happened on Thursday.
The army said the operation took place in Sambisa Forest believed to be the last stronghold of Boko Haram.
It was however not clear if any of more than 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram from a school in Chibok in April 2014 were among those freed.
In a tweet, the Nigerian military said , another set of 234 women and children were rescued through the Kawuri and Konduga end of the Sambisa Forest.
Some 500 women and children have already been rescued by the military in the past few days.
The military had pledged to free more hostages from Boko Haram after hundreds were rescued earlier this week.
The military also said on Thursday that about 160 hostages had been rescued from Sambisa in additional to 200 girls and 93 women freed on Tuesday.
The numbers underlined the scale of the tactic of mass abduction used Boko Haram who according to Amnesty International have seized about 2,000 women and girls since the start of last year.
The military said they were still screening the freed hostages with a view to establishing their identities.
It has not yet been confirmed if any of the girls rescued are from Chibok
The mass kidnapping in Chibok prompted global outrage and forced President Goodluck Jonathan to accept international help in the search operation for the missing girls.
Goodluck Jonathan came under severe criticism for not doing enough to free the Chibok girls as well as end the six-year-old Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed some 13,000 lives and forced at least 1.5 million people to flee their homes.
However Nigeria’s president Elect Muhamamdu Buhari has promised to deal decisively with the militant group which he has called a bogus organisation whose intent is to terrorise civilians.
