Nigerian security sources say over 60 girls and women kidnapped last month by the Boko Haram Takfiri militants have escaped from their captors.

A security source in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state said on Sunday that the women managed to flee after their captors left their hideout to attack military and police forces in the area.

I have "received an alert from my colleagues ... that about 63 of the abducted women and girls had made it back home" late Friday, local vigilante Abbas Gava said.

"They took the bold step when their abductors moved out to carry out an operation," Gava added.

They were abducted in mid-June during an attack by the Takfiri militants against villages in Borno.

The militants also abducted 276 schoolgirls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok on April 14.

Reports say 57 of the girls managed to escape, but 219 are still missing and international efforts to spot and rescue them have failed so far.

The Nigerian government has been under intense pressure by many people around the globe especially the girls’ families to secure their release.

Boko Haram -- whose name means “Western education is forbidden” -- says its goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government.

It has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly gun and bomb attacks in various parts of Nigeria since 2009.

Over the past five years, violence in the north of Africa’s most populous country has claimed the lives of more than 3,600 people.