Boko Haram abducts 400 women in Damasak
Boko Haram militants have kidnapped more than 400 women and
children from the northern Nigerian town of Damasak in Mobbar Local Government
Area, of Borno State that was freed this month by troops from Niger and Chad,
residents said on Tuesday.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure,
but the Islamist group has previously carried out mass kidnappings, reports Reuters.
Boko Haram's
abduction last April of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the region stirred
international outrage and drew global attention to the group's six-year
insurgency.
"They took 506 young women and children (in Damasak).
They killed about 50 of them before leaving," a trader called Souleymane
Ali told Reuters in the town. "We don’t know if they killed others after
leaving, but they took the rest with them."
Troops from Niger and Chad last week found the bodies of at
least 70 people in an apparent execution site under a bridge leading out of
Damasak, where the streets remain strewn with debris and burnt-out cars after
the fighting.
Ali said his wife and three of his daughters were among
those seized.
"Two of them were supposed to get married this year.
(Boko Haram) said 'They are slaves so we’re taking them because they belong to
us'," he said.
Mohamed Ousmane, another trader, said the militants took his
two wives and three of their children.
A 40-year-old resident who gave her name as Fana said
fighters had rounded up captives in the main mosque before taking them out of
town. She said she saved her two children by hiding them in her house.
Boko Haram wants to carve out a caliphate in northern
Nigeria. A sharp increase in violence forced a delay in planned elections last
month in Africa's most populous country.
Nigerian, Chadian and Niger forces have driven militants out
of a string of towns in simultaneous offensives over the past month. Nigeria
says all but three of the 20 local government areas occupied at the beginning
of the year have been freed.
Nigeria's rearranged election is now due to take place on
Saturday.
Niger troops distributed food on Tuesday to a handful of
residents who remained in Damasak. A few others returned to check their houses
but left for the bush again.
Ali said he was just hoping life would return to normal.
"We’ve seen the worst possible things you can imagine,
so after a certain point there was no point in trying to leave," he said.
"They killed all our friends, our family members, so we just submitted
ourselves to God."
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