According to a breaking news report on AFP,
around 30 adolescents -- some of them girls aged
as young as 11 -- have been abducted in
northeast Nigeria by suspected Boko Haram
rebels. "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 (30 miles) east of Maiduguri, the
capital of Borno state.
"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."
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, which has been waging a bloody
insurgency since 2009, has been responsible for waves of attacks and abductions.
In April, the Islamist rebel group snatched more
than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northeast
Nigeria, 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 the high hundreds.
Most are believed to be forced into marriages with
rebels.
The latest kidnapping comes despite the Nigerian
government declaring a truce with the insurgents
and the army retaking control of Abadam in the
north-east on Saturday, according to a senior
security official in the region.
But local chief Maina said his village and areas
around it were targeted in nearly daily raids by
Boko Haram, and many residents have fled to
Maiduguri "for fear of being killed or losing their
children". He said he had pleaded for help from the
Nigerian government but that so far none had been forthcoming.
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