AFP – About 30 adolescents – some of them girls aged as young as 11 – were at the weekend abducted in Borno State by suspected Boko Haram insurgents, a local village chief told journalists on Sunday, October 26, 2014.
“The insurgents… grabbed young people, boys and girls, from our region,” said Alhaji Shettima Maina, who is in charge of the Mafa village around 50 kilometres east of the city of Maiduguri.
“They took all boys aged 13 and over… and all girls aged 11 and more. According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days,” he said.
The abduction is coming on the heels of a report on Sunday, October 26, 2014 by the Cameroonian defence ministry that its troops on Friday, October 24 killed 39 Boko Haram fighters in clashes with the Islamists, who were carrying out three raids on Cameroun’s territory.
The Friday, October 24, 2014 fighting in the far North of Cameroun near Nigeria also claimed four civilian lives, the ministry said in a statement sent to AFP.
Meanwhile, another village elder, Mallam Ashiekh Mustapha, confirmed the account.
Both men said 17 people were also killed in recent days in a Boko Haram attack on the nearby village of Ndongo. Boko Haram insurgent which has been waging a bloody insurgency since 2009, has been responsible for the waves of attacks and abductions.
In April, the Islamist rebel group snatched more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, triggering an international outcry.
Kidnapping young women and girls – as well as forcibly conscripting young men and boys to fight for Boko Haram – is a well-established tactic by the militants.
Some estimates put the number of women held by the group in over hundreds. Most are believed to be forced into marriages with rebels.
Maina said his village and areas around it were targeted in nearly daily raids by Boko Haram, prompting many residents to flee to Maiduguri for safety.
He said he had pleaded for help from the Nigerian government but that so far, none had been forthcoming.
Their latest attack targeted the village of Glawi, “killing four Nigerian refugees and wounding one Cameroonian, before being pushed back by defence forces which pursued them until the borders,” the ministry said, adding that a dozen militants were killed by the troops.
Another two groups of Boko Haram Islamists entered Cameroun at around the same time, but were “immediately intercepted and neutralised by our defence forces who destroyed three Sport Unility Vehicles (SUV) equipped with machine guns, killing 27 assailants,” said the ministry statement.
The toll issued by the ministry has not been confirmed by independent sources.
There was also no details on any casualties suffered by the army. The Camerounian army regularly issues updates on the number of Boko Haram fighters it has killed.
Last week, it said it killed 107 Islamists during fighting that also saw eight Camerounian soldiers lossing thier lives.
President Paul Biya of Cameroun has vowed to “totally wipe out” the Islamist group, after 27 Chinese and Camerounian hostages kidnapped in May and July in Cameroun’s territory by suspected Boko Haram Islamists were released.
Cameroun shares a border of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) with Nigeria, where Boko Haram insurgents has been waging a bloody insurgency since 2009 in which 10,000 people have died.
