Boko
Haram has kidnapped at least 185 people from the northeast Nigeria village of
Gumsuri, carting the hostages away on trucks towards the Sambisa Forest, a
notorious rebel stronghold, two local officials and a vigilante leader said Thursday.
The mass
abduction, part of an attack that also killed 32 people, occurred Sunday in the
village of Gumsuri, Borno state, in the embattled northeast.
Both
officials, who requested anonymity, said the local government established the
number of those abducted through contacting families, ward heads and emirs.
A
vigilante leader based in the Borno state capital Maiduguri, Usman Kakani, told
AFP that fighters who were in Gumsuri during the attack provided a figure of
191 abducted, including women, girls and boys.
Gumsuri
is roughly 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of Maiduguri and falls on the road
that leads to Chibok, where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in
April.
Details
of the Gumsuri attack took four days to emerge because the mobile phone network
in the region has completely collapsed and many roads are impassable.
Those who
fled the village said it was too dangerous to head directly to Maiduguri.
Instead, they travelled several hundred kilometres in the opposite direction to
connect with the main road that leads to the state capital.
Mukhtar
Buba, a Gumsuri resident who fled to Maiduguri, also confirmed that women and
children were taken. “After killing our youths, the insurgents have taken away
our wives and daughters,” he said.
Boko
Haram has increasingly used kidnappings to boost its supply of child fighters,
porters and young women who have reportedly been used as sex slaves.
The mass
abductions in Chibok brought unprecedented attention to Boko Haram’s five-year
extremist uprising, and President Goodluck Jonathan vowed to end the conflict.
But
violence has escalated since April and the Gumsuri attack will no doubt cast
further doubt on Nigeria’s ability to contain the crisis.
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