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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