Residents: Boko Haram Kidnapped Hundreds from Borno Town

some members of Boko Haram 

•  Troops sack sect from Pulka, foil suicide bomber

Senator Iroegbu with agency report
Boko Haram militants are believed to have kidnapped more than 400 women and children from the Borno town of Damasak that was freed this month by troops from Niger and Chad, residents said on Tuesday.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure, but the Islamist group had previously carried out mass kidnappings. Boko Haram's abduction last April of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the region stirred international outrage and drew global attention to the group's six-year insurgency.

“They took 506 young women and children (in Damasak). They killed about 50 of them before leaving,” a trader called Souleymane Ali told Reuters in the town. “We don’t know if they killed others after leaving, but they took the rest with them.”

Troops from Niger and Chad last week found the bodies of at least 70 people in an apparent execution site under a bridge leading out of Damasak.

Lieutenant Colonel Toumba Mohamed, the Nigerien commander of the Niger-Chad forces in Damasak, said residents had reported between 400 and 500 women and children kidnapped.

In another incident, Nigerian troops Monday evening took full control of Pulka in Borno after a fierce battle with Boko Haram terrorists who had been operating in the town.

Confirming the recapture of the town, Defence Headquarters spokesman, Major-General Chris Olukolade, said in a statement yesterday that Pulka had served as one of their major access routes to the Mandara mountains and supply route out of the country with links towards Cameroun.

“Cordon and search has commenced after the air and land operation that overpowered the terrorists,” he said.

Also in the mission area, a male terrorist suspect who disguised himself as a lady fully dressed in hijab was nabbed by the troops as he made for a mission to kill innocent citizens in Kwaya Kusar market in Borno State on Saturday, Olukolade added.

“He is currently in the custody of the army and has already given useful information on the mode of their (Boko Haram) operations," the spokesman said,
adding that the mission against the terror group continues