About 16 women have been abducted by suspected Boko Haram terrorists in Sabongari village of restive northeast Nigeria’s Adamawa state, local police said Thursday.
State police spokesperson Othman Abubakar, who confirmed the latest abduction to Xinhua in Yola, the state capital, said the state authority had sent a detachment of police officers to the affected area who are working round the clock to track down the abducted women.
The women were abducted on Wednesday when they went to obtain firewood in nearby forest, Aliu Fari, a local village hunter told reporters, noting that two of the women managed to escape.
Adamu Kamale, a lawmaker representing the area, also said he heard the shocking news to the effect that about 16 women have been abducted by Boko Haram.
“We have been witnessing pockets of attacks contrary to the belief that security has been fully restored in the area. I have been calling for the deployment of security personnel but to no avail as the government seems to have relegated our concerns to the background,” he said.
More than 210 school girls were abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 in Chibok town of Borno. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in Nigeria since it launched an insurgency in 2009, trying to establish an Islamist state.
The Federal government says it has “technically” defeated the group, but the militants continue to carry out attacks in the West African country.
President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to bring back the missing girls, although there are fears that some of them might have been taken across borders or married off by their abductors.
(Source: BREAKING TIMES)