Boko Haram preachers abducted more than 40 boys and young men from a village
Suspected Boko Haram insurgents pretending to be preachers abducted more than 40 boys and young men from a village in northeastern Nigeria, according to Hassan Ibrahim, who is a member of a local youth vigilante group.
The gunmen arrived at Malari village in Borno state at about 8 p.m. local time yesterday and rounded up males, claiming they had a mission to preach Islam, Ibrahim said today in a phone interview. The gunmen then took away at least 40 unwed males between the ages of 10 and 23 to Sambisa forest, which is known as a hideout for Boko Haram, he said.
“The hoodlums assembled the entire males in the village pretending to have come to preach to them and after some time they led over 40 of the youth away,” Ibrahim said, citing information he received from villagers who fled the scene.
Boko Haram has stepped up kidnappings and attacked security forces as well as churches and residential areas mostly in the Muslim north during its five-year campaign to impose Shariah, or Islamic law. In that time, the group has killed more than 13,000 people in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, according to President Goodluck Jonathan.
In April, it abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in the northeastern village of Chibok, focusing international attention on the scourge. Most of those girls are still missing.
