KANO (Nigeria), Nov 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Boko Haram militants killed 12 people and abducted seven others in a raid on a village near the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok, local sources said.
Chibok is the scene of the mass kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in 2014 by Boko Haram which drew global outrage and international attention to the group.
Fighters in six pickup trucks drove into Takulashi village on Sunday, 18 kilometres (12 miles) from Chibok, shooting residents and setting homes ablaze.
“The terrorists killed 12 people, including two of our members who engaged them in a gunfight,” Abwaku Kabu, the leader of a local government-backed militia said.
Anti-militant militia members from Chibok mobilised in two trucks to defend the village but they were outnumbered by the militants who seized one of the trucks, Kabu said.
The insurgents who attacked the village from their Sambisa forest enclave nearby abducted seven residents and burnt 70 houses after looting food supplies, Ayuba Alamson, a community leader in Chibok said.
“The insurgents took away three women and their four children in the attack,” said Alamson who have the same death toll.
Troops have been stationed in Chibok since the schoolgirls kidnap but deadly Boko Haram raids continue in the area.
In the wake of the mass abduction, 57 of the girls escaped shortly after the kidnapping and 107 were either rescued or released after negotiations. Some 112 are still in captivity.
The decade-long conflict in northeast Nigeria has killed 36,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast, according to the United Nations. — NNN-AGENCIES