Again! Boko Haram Kills 35, Kidnaps 100 Women

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped more than 100 women and children and killed 35 people during a Sunday raid on the remote northeast Nigerian village of Gumskiri, a security source and resident said on Thursday.

News from remote parts of Nigeria that are cut off from mobile communications sometimes takes days to travel.

"They gathered the people, shot dead over 30 people and took away more than 100 women and children in two open top trucks," Maina Chibok, who did not witness the attack but is from Gumskiri and visited family there shortly afterwards.

Although no one has claimed it yet, the attack bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which in a similar assault abducted more than 200 women in April from a secondary school in Chibok, very near this latest attack on the Cameroon border.

"They also burned down a government medical center, houses and shops," Chibook said.

The five-year-old campaign for an Islamic state by Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", has become the greatest menace to the security of Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer. 

The abductions have gained in frequency this year. A man who says he is Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau last month rejected comments by the government it was in talks to free the Chibok girls, saying he had in fact "married them off" to Boko Haram commanders, in a video posted on the Internet.

A youth vigilante from the area called Aliyu Mamman told Reuters by telephone that there was no security presence to stop the militants, who stayed in the town all night before leaving.

The military, which does not usually comment on security developments in the northeast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Sunday's incident.

Cameroon's army killed 116 Boko Haram militants Wednesday when they attacked a base in the far north of the country, said defense ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjeck.

"On the militant side, there were 116 deaths in Cameroonian territory and unknown damage on the Nigerian side (of the border) after the vigorous riposte of our artillery," he said.

There was no independent confirmation of the exchange. 

Source: Chicago Tribune