The 350 hostages had been held in the Sambisa Forest, a hideout for the extremist group that launched an insurgency in 2009, Maj. Gen. Ken Chigbu, a senior Nigerian army officer, said Monday while handing them over to officials in Borno state, where the forest is located. The 209 children, 135 women and six men appeared exhausted and wore torn clothes, according to the Associated Press news agency. Some of the girls had babies believed to have been born from forced marriages, as is common with female victims who are raped or forced to marry their captors while in captivity. One of the hostages had seven children and said she and others were unable to escape because of their kids. “I always wanted to escape but I couldn’t because of the children,” said Hajara Umara, who was rescued along with her children. “If they caught you trying to escape, they would torture you and detain you indefinitely,” she added. The army said the hostages were rescued during a daylong military operation in the Sambisa Forest, which was once a bustling game reserve that straddles the border with Cameroon and Niger but now serves as an enclave from which Boko Haram and its splinter factions launch attacks that have also targeted civilians and security forces in neighboring countries. The freed hostages were transported by trucks to the Borno state government headquarters, where officials will process them before they are reunited with their families. Some extremists were killed during the rescue operation and their makeshift homes were destroyed, the military said. Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown terror group, launched its insurgency in 2009 with the aim of establishing strict Islamic law, or Shariah, across the country. At least 35,000 people have been killed and 2.1 million displaced by extremist violence in Nigeria since 2009, according to U.N. agencies in the country. At least 1,400 students have been abducted from Nigerian schools since the 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls by Boko Haram militants from the village of Chibok in Borno state shocked the world. In recent years, abductions have been concentrated in the country’s conflict-hit northwest and central regions, where dozens of armed groups frequently target villagers and travelers for ransom. See Also: Boko Haram mantém em cativeiro 89 nigerianas de Chibok dez anos depois (Portuguese version)