President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the Nigerian army drove out the Boko Haram militants from their last camp in the Sambisa forest. “The terrorists are on the run and have no place to hide,” Buhari said in a statement. He added that the militants’ stronghold fell at 13:35 local time (12:35 GMT). The army was engaged in a major offensive battle in the forest for the last few weeks. There has been speculation that some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 were being held in the forest. Some of the abducted girls, who escaped shortly after they were captured, said that they had been kept there. The army recaptured significant areas of territory, previously controlled by Boko Haram, since the operation began. Buhari issued a statement, congratulating the armed forces on the operation and calling the apparent success ‘long-awaited and most gratifying.’ “I want to use this opportunity to commend the determination, courage and resilience of troops of Lafiya Dole operation. They finally crushed the remnants of the Boko Haram insurgents,” he said. Boko Haram still stages suicide bombings in the northeast of Nigeria and in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon. The group is thought to have killed more than 15,000 people and displaced more than two million during a seven-year insurgency in the region.