Boko Haram abducts 40 boys, men in 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 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.