No fewer than 185 women have been reported kidnapped by Boko Haram
insurgents in Gumsuri, North of Chibok in Borno State.
The insurgents, who killed about 32 men, set fire on the village with
petrol bombs before herding the women and children in their pickup trucks.
The Sunday incident is coming less than nine months after
over 200 schoolchildren were abducted by Boko Haram gunmen from their hostel in
Chibok.
The fate of most of the girls remains unknown even though military
authorities openly declared that they knew where they are being held.
News of the attack, according to the Cable News Network, took four days to emerge because of a lack of
communication.
Telecommunications towers in the area had been disabled in previous
attacks.
The CNN quoted a local
government official in its report on Thursday as confirming the abduction.
“They gathered the women and children and took them away in trucks after
burning most of the village with petrol bombs,” the official whose
name was not given said.
He added that he learned of the attack from residents who
fled to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
CNN reported that the Boko Haram militants stormed the village from two
directions, overwhelming local vigilantes who had repelled them
over the course of the year.
A resident of Gumsuri, Umar Ari, who trekked for four days
to Maiduguri, said,
‘‘They destroyed almost half the village and took away 185 women, girls
and boys.”
Another resident, Modu Kalli, said the militants fired heavy machine
guns on the village and poured canisters of petrol on houses before setting
them on fire.
“We lost everything in the attack. I escaped with nothing, save the clothes
I have on me,” Kalli said.
CNN reported on Thursday that hundreds of residents of Gumsuri continued to
arrive in Maiduguri, a city that has been struggling to accommodate thousands
of people fleeing towns and villages overrun by Boko Haram.
Director, Defence Information, Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, could not comment
on the attack
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