A statement by PRNigeria, a media advisory for government security agencies, quoting a military source, said yesterday that troops from the two neighbouring countries are in charge of security and protection of the border town of Damasak in accordance with the dictates of the memorandum of understanding establishing the Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF) against terrorism in the North-east.
Also, the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has restrained two unaccredited Al Jazeera journalists to their hotel rooms after they were found loitering around operational areas of the North-east.
According to the statement, the clarification on the abduction became necessary in view of a trending speculation in major international media that another 400 children and women were kidnapped and led away by Boko Haram terrorists while fleeing from Damasak recently liberated by Chadian and Nigerien troops.
The military personnel who spoke wondered how fleeing terrorists who were pounded by Nigerian Air Force aircraft before being overwhelmed by forces from the two MJTF participating troops could have led away over 400 individuals along with them in the process.
“Although we are not officially responding to such baseless assertions because it has become normal for some interests to manufacture something so that their media will have something negative to report about Nigeria.
“It is nevertheless important to let them know that troops from Niger and Chad have been in charge of protecting that town and we wonder how they would have allowed Boko Haram the luxury of such mass kidnapping?
“Were the abducted individuals herded away on foot or packed in trailers or small trucks?” the source wondered.
Similarly, Mike Omeri, Coordinator of the National Information Centre (NIC), yesterday denied reports of a mass kidnapping in Damasak, as Boko Haram militants fled the military offensive.
“There is no fresh kidnapping in Damasak,” Omeri told AFP, referring to the town recently retaken by forces from neighbouring Chad and Niger.
But Omeri said Nigeria had no information about a mass abduction. A senator who represents the area and a senior intelligence source also cast doubt on the reports.
The contradictory claims shed light on the difficulty of establishing facts in the brutal, six-year conflict, with communications infrastructure devastated in the northeast and travel restricted.
Officials, the military and locals frequently give contrasting information.
The militants do have a track record of mass kidnappings, however, including the high-profile abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in April last year from the Borno town of Chibok.
Omeri noted Boko Haram’s widely reported tactic of forcibly conscripting young boys during their hit-and-run attacks and attempts to indoctrinate them into the group’s radical ideology.
Many Boko Haram fighters are believed to be on the run as a result of the offensive by Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, who have routed the insurgents from dozens of towns.
Several sources said it was possible, and perhaps even likely, that scores of Boko Haram conscripts were missing, feared kidnapped by the militants across the region.
But they denied a specific mass abduction in Damasak, where the Chadian military last week said that about 100 bodies, some of them decapitated, were found in a mass grave.
Senator Maina Lawan, whose constituency includes Damasak, said: “I will be extremely surprised that such a huge number of my constituents would be abducted without me being informed.
“It is very unlikely that Boko Haram would have abducted such a huge number of people from Damasak because most of the people had fled months ago when Boko Haram took over.”
A senior intelligence source in Borno’s capital Maiduguri said there was “no iota of truth” to the mass abduction claims.
Meanwhile, two journalists working for Al Jazeera Television who were found loitering around restricted areas where military operations are ongoing in the North-east have been restrained in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
DHQ said on its website that the “journalists, Ahmed Idris and Mustafa Andy, who were noted to have been moving around various locations including restricted areas in Yobe and Borno States were also operating without any protection, accreditation or due clearance”.
They were accordingly monitored by military intelligence operatives until they eventually had to be restrained to their hotel in Maiduguri, said DHQ.
“This followed increasing suspicion that their activities were aimed at interfering with the ongoing military operations in the area. The motive, activities and some material in possession of these individuals are being investigated,” it added.
Foreign journalists had been cautioned against unauthorised and unprotected movement around the military operations area. DHQ reiterated the warning until formally reversed or lifted.
“Appropriate arrangements will however continue to be made to assist duly cleared journalists to cover activities in the mission area within the limits of adequate safety, security and necessary procedures.
“The Nigerian military which believes in press freedom is more concerned about the safety of journalists operating in Nigeria and would endeavour to avoid unnecessary controversy in other climes especially when some Al Jazeera journalists were tried and jailed in Egypt for aiding terrorism during the turbulent days of the Islamic Brotherhood’s reign in the country,” DHQ said.
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