The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: EC on June 10, 2014, 05:57:58 am
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Suspected Boko Haram militants have abducted at least 20 women close to where 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped in northern Nigeria, eyewitnesses say.
The women were loaded onto vans at gunpoint and driven away to an unknown location in Borno state, they add.
The army has not commented on the incident, which occurred on the nomadic Garkin Fulani settlement on Thursday.
The Nigerian military has faced mounting criticism for failing to stop militant attacks in the north-east.
Despite a state of emergency in place in the region, residents say the army is largely inactive or even absent, allowing the Boko Haram militants to continue their attacks.
The group has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since 2009 in an attempt to create an Islamic state in Nigeria - and thousands of people have died in their attacks and the subsequent security crackdown.
'Too late'
The latest incident occurred close to where more than 200 schoolgirls were snatched from the remote Chibok village near the Cameroonian border on 14 April.
A member of a local vigilante group set up to resist such attacks said that in addition to the women, the militants also seized three men who had tried to stop the abduction.
"We tried to go after them when the news got to us about three hours later, but the vehicles we have could not go far, and the report came to us a little bit late," Alhaji Tar said.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27774239