Boko Haram kills 32, kidnaps 185 in Nigeria
Boko Haram has kidnapped at least 185 people, including women and children, from a Nigerian village, carting the hostages away on trucks towards Sambisa Forest, a notorious rebel stronghold, two local officials and a vigilante leader said yesterday.
The mass abduction, part of an attack that also killed 32 people, occurred Sunday in the village of Gumsuri, Borno state, in the embattled northeast.
Both officials, who requested anonymity, said the local government established the number of those abducted through contacting families, ward heads and emirs.
A vigilante leader based in the Borno state capital Maiduguri, Usman Kakani, told AFP that fighters who were in Gumsuri during the attack provided a figure of 191 abducted, including women, girls and boys.
Gumsuri is roughly 70 kilometres south of Maiduguri and falls on the road that leads to Chibok, where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.
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.
Meanwhile, a Nigerian military court on Wednesday sentenced 54 soldiers to death for mutiny after they refused to deploy for an operation against Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast, their lawyer said.
"They sentenced 54 to death and acquitted five," said prominent human rights lawyer Femi Falana, following a court martial that began on October 15 and was conducted behind closed doors.
Reporters were turned away from the court before the tribunal gave its verdict and military officials were not available for comment afterwards.
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