Suspected Boko Haram militants kidnapped at least 20 young women over the weekend in northeastern Nigeria, 8 kilometers from a town where more than 200 schoolgirls were taken nearly two months ago, local officials said Monday.
The incident in the village of Garkin Fulani is the latest in a series of abductions for ransom in the area, according to an official with the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, the umbrella union of all nomadic Fulani in the country.
The MACBAN official, who is in Garkin Fulani, put the number of women kidnapped at as many as 40.
The suspected militants came into the village in broad daylight on Saturday, heavily armed and wearing military uniforms.
“(They) took away 40 women, all of them young mothers,” said the official, who asked not to be named for safety reasons.
A Borno state official confirmed the abduction but said only 20 women were abducted.
“We are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the abduction,” the government official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the incident.
Alhaji Tar, a member of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria, a loosely formed civilian force tasked with providing security, also put the number at 20, along with three young men who were left to look after the village while the other men took their cattle to graze in the bush.
The location of the women is still unknown and the kidnappers have not made contact with their families, Tar said…
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