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Boko Haram

ABUJA. — Nigerian security forces are investigating a possible mass kidnapping of villagers in the northeast state of Borno where Boko Haram Islamist militants abducted more than 200 schoolgirls two months ago, a security source said yesterday. Nigerian media reported yesterday that as many as 91 villagers had been abducted, most of them women and young girls. Reuters was unable to verify these accounts independently .

Military officials are looking into reports that suspected militant Islamists raided three villages over the weekend 100km from the state capital Maiduguri, the source added.

If confirmed, the latest abduction will fuel public frustration over the authorities’ inability to contain Boko Haram’s five-year campaign to carve out an Islamist state in the mainly Muslim north.

The movement, which has killed thousands in regular bomb and gun attacks, initially focused on government and security targets, churches and Muslim leaders that rejected its brand of Islam.

It has recently increasingly attacked civilians and triggered an international outcry when it kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school in the remote Borno village of Chibok in April.

Boko Haram has been demanding the release of detained members in exchange for its hostages.
In another development, dozens of people were killed following a bomb explosion at a medical school in the north-western state of Kano.

State police spokesperson Musa Majiya confirmed the incident and said official casualties could not been given immediately due to on-going rescue operation, AFP reported.

However, rescue operators and witnesses said more than one and half dozen of lifeless bodies had been evacuated following the incident at the Kano State School of Hygiene, a specialised medical institution, located in the central business district area of the metropolitan city.

Meanwhile, president Goodluck Jonathan on Monday admitted in Kaduna that the activities of the Boko Haram Islamic sect had overstretched the nation’s security and adversely affected the nation’s economic growth. — Reuters/The Punch.