Boko
Haram has kidnapped at least 185 people, including women and children,
from a Nigerian village, carting the hostages away on trucks towards
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.
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