Officials in Nigeria along with UN officials say that over 200 of the nearly 700 women and girls rescued from the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram have been forcibly impregnated by their captors.

“Already, many of them are undergoing screening for various diseases [and] infections, including HIV/AIDS,” UNFPA Nigeria executive director Babatunde Oshotimehin told reporters, “and about 214 of those already screened were discovered to be at various stages of pregnancies, some visibly pregnant and some just tested pregnant.”

The governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, had been expressing concern over the forced impregnations of the women saying he believes the terrorists are showing one way they hope to spread their extremism across the land.

“Boko Haram insurgents deliberately raped women with the intention of getting them pregnant so they would give birth to future insurgents as successors of their violent struggles, hence the need for a special programm to break the chain anticipated by the insurgents,” spokesperson Isa Gusau said on Monday, according to the Nigerian publication “The Leadership.”

“I [am] very worried about what the future holds for us if what I have gathered about these insurgents works according to their plan,” he continued. “These people (Boko Haram) have a certain spiritual conviction that any child they father will grow to inherit their ideology, whether they live with the children or not.”

The government said they will be providing all the necessary support to the women after their rescue including mental health efforts to reverse any brainwashing by the terrorists.

Officials did say they believe that none of the recovered girls were among the Chibok girls taken in 2013.