The entrance to the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital in Ilorin, Nigeria this week. It's patients, from Woro village, were among 308 people the Nigerian government said were rescued from suspected jihadist captivity in the Kainji Lake National Park forest bringing one of the region’s most harrowing mass kidnappings to a close.
Frail and malnourished children and women lay on rows of hospital beds, their bodies bearing the scars of six months of captivity deep in the Nigerian bush.
The patients were among 163 kidnapping victims rescued this month in the Kainji Lake National Park forest, after their village, Woro, was attacked by suspected jihadists.
Some 308 people were freed in what the government called the largest single day rescue operation. But at the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital in Ilorin, a long road to recovery lay ahead.
A child lay beneath a blue sheet, hooked to a respirator, with doctors and nurses clustered around the bed.
