admin
Kano — Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in northeast Nigerian Borno state on New Year’s Eve, residents who fled the isolated settlement said on Saturday.
Scores of Boko Haram militants stormed the Malari village and whisked away the males, aged between 10 and 23, into the nearby Sambisa forest, believed to be one of the Islamists’ major bases.
The news of the abductions came out only days later, when residents who fled the village arrived in the state capital Maiduguri late on Friday.
“They came in pick-up trucks armed with guns and gathered all the men in the village outside the home of the village chief where they preached to us before singling out 40 of our boys and taking them away,” Bulama Muhammad said
Malari village lies 20km from the Sambisa forest and close to the town of Gwoza, which the militants captured last June declaring it part of their caliphate.
“My two sons and three nephews were among those taken away by the Boko Haram gunmen and we believe they’re going to use them as conscripts,” Muhammad said.
“When we heard of the kidnap of 40 boys in Malari by Boko Haram we decided to leave because we could be the next target,” said Alaramma Babagoni, who fled from the nearby village of Mulgwi.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from the military in Maiduguri.
Boko Haram is still holding in captivity more than 200 schoolgirls it abducted from their school in Chibok in Borno state last April.
The Islamists are believed to control large swathes of territory in Borno as well as several towns and villages in two other northeastern states, Adamawa and Yobe.
Boko Haram’s five-year uprising in Nigeria has claimed more than 13,000 lives and has seen dozens of people, including women and children, kidnapped by the Islamists.
Meanwhile, at least 15 people have been killed in an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants on a bus in northern Cameroon, a senior local security official and a businessman said on Saturday.
Over the last year, Boko Haram, which has killed thousands in its struggle to create a caliphate in northern Nigeria, has stepped up attacks on both sides of the border, forcing Cameroon to dispatch thousands of troops to its north.
“Boko Haram elements on Thursday attacked a bus that was transporting many passengers from Kousseri to Maroua and killed 25 persons on the spot,” said a senior officer in the military’s BIR rapid reaction unit deployed in the region.
The officer, who asked not to be named, said another 10 people had been severely injured and taken to Maroua hospital and he feared the death toll would rise.
Maroua is the capital of the Far North region, which has seen the worst of the spillover of Nigeria’s conflict.
Cameroonian authorities were not available for comment on the attack, which took place in the evening of January 1. However, a local businessman based in the north said travellers who reached the town of Maroua had confirmed the incident.
Foncha Ngeh, who is based in Maroua, said travellers had told him there were at least 15 dead in the incident but many more had been injured and were being transported to Maroua for treatment.
Ngeh said there had been a string of other attacks in the region, carried out by Islamists but also ordinary bandits targeting people travelling during the holidays with lots of cash.
Late last month, Cameroon had to call on its air force to help troops dislodge Boko Haram fighters who briefly occupied a military camp after hundreds of militants mounted a wave of attacks on five northern towns.
Raids by Boko Haram have forced many Cameroonians living along the porous border to abandon farms, raising the risk of food shortages in the semi-arid part of the country. — Reuters
Online Reporter
Londile Moyo