Boko Haram Suspected of New Kidnappings in Nigeria

By Alan Cowell

The New York Times

24 June, 2014

Militants are suspected of having abducted dozens more girls and women in northeastern Nigeria, news reports said on Tuesday, reviving concerns about hundreds of schoolgirls who were kidnapped in the same region in April and have yet to be rescued.

Quoting witnesses and officials in the area, the reports said that 60 girls and women, and possibly more than 30 boys, had been seized in the village of Kummabza, about 100 miles from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.

The Nigerian authorities said that they had yet to confirm the abduction, which was said to have taken place on Saturday. Witnesses accused militants from the Boko Haram group, which took responsibility for the abductions in April, of carrying out the kidnapping after attacks on villages.

Boko Haram, which has sought to trade hostages in return for its own members detained by the security forces, has been accused of regular attacks, despite a military state of emergency in the region.

On Monday, at least eight people were killed and 20 others wounded by an explosion on a college campus in Kano, northern Nigeria. It was not immediately known whether the attack was part of Boko Haram’s campaign to promote an Islamic state.

Earlier this month, the group killed scores of people — possibly hundreds, according to the Nigerian news media — in what local officials described as a massacre in northeastern Nigeria along the border with Cameroon, which has deployed thousands of its troops as part of a regional campaign against the group.

Featured Image: Nigerian teachers demonstrated last month to call for the release of abducted schoolgirls held by Boko Haram and to demand better security in Maiduguri (Joe Penney/Reuters)