ABUJA, NIGERIA (Reuters) - Nigeria's state security agency handed the recently released 82 Chibok girls over to the country's Ministry of Women's Affairs on Tuesday (May 30).

Since their release on May 6, the girls have been kept at a Department of State Services (DSS) medical facility where they have undergone medical checks and trauma evaluation.

Following the handover, the girls are to be housed in Abuja's Women Development Centre, where Minister of Women Affairs Aisha Alhassan says they will be rehabilitated in order to 'make up for what they have lost'.

Ms Alhassan added that the girls can return to their families any time they want.

The schoolgirls, now young women, were among 276 female students taken from their school in Chibok in the remote north-eastern Borno state in April 2014 by Islamist militant group Boko Haram.