Sadiq Abubakar
Eight female students of a secondary school in Ture village in Ngala local government area of Borno state were kidnapped yesterday by Boko Haram insurgents who invaded the area, three weeks after nearly 300 female students were abducted from another school in Chibok by the sect members.
This is just as 18 civilians were killed yesterday by the insurgents in Gamboru Ngala, a town in the same local government area, during an exchange of fire between Boko Haram fighters and security operatives and the Civilian JTF.
Police authorities in Maiduguri confirmed both incidents, saying the eight kidnapped students were on their way home from school.
The insurgents, who were armed with sophisticated weapons, stormed the village in large numbers and forced the girls into waiting vehicles painted with military colours.
They fired several shots into the air and were said to have seized a lot of foodstuff and grains.
Hundreds of people in the community are said to have fled following the attacks.
Eyewitnesses told Blueprint that there was no exchange of fire between the insurgents and the military during the attack.
A villager, Mr. Isyaku Bako, told our correspondent on phone: “The insurgents came in broad daylight and just whisked away the students who were walking back home after school hours. There was no any casualty or attack by them.
“They only picked the students and left.
“Yes, it is a day school and it is a mixed school of boys and girls. So I would not know actually whether the students were all girls or boys.
“But I am very sure they went away with the students and nobody knows where they may be by now. We don’t have news about them yet. Our people will rise up to the task of searching for them in the forest and bring them back to their parents.”
Baana Karumi, a motor mechanic living in Gamboru, also told Blueprint: “I was in town when it all happened. We ran helter skelter for our lives. Men, women and children were all running for safety. The insurgents took over the town. This was the second time they were attacking the town in this manner. It was long ago they launched such attack. They burned the police divisional headquarters, schools properties or structures, customs and immigration outpost at the border by the bridge demarcating Nigeria and Cameroon and few houses as well as shops along some roads in town. They overpowered the military on ground. Everybody was running, including the soldiers and civilian JTF.
“I even saw about eighteen dead bodies of our people. We even heard that they entered a neighbourhood at the border checkpoint area and killed three people inside a house, apart from those I have not seen or heard about.
“It was terrible for us here again but we pray that this is the end of it. Government should send more troops and equipment to this border town please. Even the military personnel are not enough here in Gamboru.”
