Mass abduction: 185 people kidnapped from Nigerian village

Details of assault took four days to emerge; witnesses blame Boko Haram

MAIDUGURI: At least 185 people, including women and children, have been kidnapped in northeast Nigeria by fighters said to belong to Boko Haram, officials and witnesses said on Thursday.

The attack, which was conducted on Sunday in the town of Gumsuri, also killed 32 people. It recalled the April kidnappings in Chibok, where more than 200 girls were taken from a school.

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.



Although Boko Haram has not claimed the Gumsuri attack, multiple sources in the village blamed the group whose five-year uprising has killed more than 13,000 people and forced more than 1.5 million others from their homes.

A convoy of gunmen stormed Gumsuri in Borno state on Sunday, throwing petrol bombs into buildings and leaving much of the village destroyed, two local officials and a witness said. The officials, who put the death toll at 32, said the local government established the number of those abducted by contacting families, ward heads and clerics.

A vigilante leader based in the Borno state capital Maiduguri, Usman Kakani, said fighters who were in Gumsuri during the attack provided a figure of 191 abducted, including women, girls and boys.

Those who fled the village said it was too dangerous to head directly to Maiduguri.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2014.