Boko Haram kidnaps soldiers’ wives, children in Borno

The army on Saturday launched a manhunt in Abbaram, Borno State, for suspected fighters of the Boko Haram sect, who had reportedly kidnapped soldiers’ wives and children during the Friday attack on an army barracks nearby town of Bama.

The suspected Boko Haram fighters had stormed the barracks in the town of Bama early on Friday, spraying it with bullets before torching the compound.

Agence France Presse reports that several Bama residents said the Boko Haram gunmen fled to the nearby village of Abbaram after the attack, where the military sent hundreds of troops on Saturday.

They told AFP that the insurgents also abducted several of the soldiers’ wives and children during the attack.

“The soldiers have besieged the village and more troops are deploying in hundreds. Nothing is happening yet but from the huge number of troops and the large number of Boko Haram in the village, one can imagine what may happen,” a Bama resident, Ibrahim Idris said.

Another Bama resident, Karim Bunu, who described Abbaram as a village of some 250 people, said, “We are afraid of what will happen to the people of Abbaram because whichever way one looks at it, they are facing a serious security threat.”

A third resident, who requested anonymity, said the sect was holding in Abbaram the “women and children of soldiers,” who had been kidnapped during the Friday attack, in an account supported by both Idris and Bunu.

When asked for details, Northeastern military spokesman Mohammed Dole referred AFP to Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters.

Defence spokesman Chris Olukolade could not be reached for comment.

In November, Human Rights Watch reported that Boko Haram has increasingly used kidnappings as a tactic, abducting scores of women and children this year.

After staging an attack on the military, the insurgents flee to far away camps to evade pursuing troops, but their escape was slowed on Friday by fighter jets which dropped bombs on the major routes leading out of Bama, according to the military and witnesses.

“I counted 18 burnt all-terrain vans belonging to the Boko Haram gunmen pulverised by military jets,” said the unnamed resident, who identified himself as a member of a military-backed vigilante force which has formed in the northeast to fight the insurgents.

Air force jets continued to fly over the region on Saturday, residents said.

The Bama attack was the second major Islamist assault on the army this month, casting further doubt on official claims that the rebels have been weakened by a seven-month-old military offensive in the North-East.