Boko Haram Abducts 40 Boys, Men In A Borno Village

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen
have kidnapped 40 boys and young
men in a remote village in 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 told AFP.
Malari village lies 20 kilometres
(12.5 miles) 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 are 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 YoBo.
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.
Source:- Vangurd