Saudi- Boko Haram kidnaps 185 kills 32

(MENAFN- Arab News) MAIDUGURI Nigeria: Boko Haram has kidnapped at least 185 people including women and children from a Nigerian village carting the hostages away on trucks toward Sambisa Forest a notorious rebel stronghold two local officials and a vigilante leader said Thursday.

The mass abduction part of an attack that also killed 32 people occurred Sunday in the village of Gumsuri Borno state in the embattled northeast.

Both officials who requested anonymity said the local government established the number of those abducted through contacting families ward heads and emirs.

A vigilante leader based in the Borno state capital Maiduguri Usman Kakani told AFP that fighters who were in Gumsuri during the attack provided a figure of 191 abducted including women girls and boys.

Gumsuri is roughly 70 kilometers south of Maiduguri and falls on the road that leads to Chibok where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.

Details of the Gumsuri attack took four days to emerge because the mobile phone network in the region has completely collapsed and many roads are impassable.

Those who fled the village said it was too dangerous to head directly to Maiduguri. Instead they traveled several hundred kilometers in the opposite direction to connect with the main road that leads to the state capital.

Mukhtar Buba a Gumsuri resident who fled to Maiduguri also confirmed that women and children were taken. 'After killing our youths the insurgents have taken away our wives and daughters' he said.

Boko Haram has increasingly used kidnappings to boost its supply of child fighters porters and young women who have reportedly been used as sex slaves.

The mass abductions in Chibok brought unprecedented attention to Boko Haram's five-year extremist uprising and President Goodluck Jonathan vowed to end the conflict.

But violence has escalated since April and the Gumsuri attack will no doubt cast further doubt on Nigeria's ability to contain the crisis.

Meanwhile according to another report Cameroon's army killed 116 Boko Haram militants on Wednesday when they attacked a base in the Far North region of the country said defense ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Didier Badjeck.

Militants ambushed a column of army vehicles using an improvised explosive device and then hundreds attacked in the region of Amchide 65 km north of Maroua at around 10.30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT).

'The response of our forces was swift and appropriate. The attack was repulsed and the attackers neutralized' Badjeck said on Thursday adding that 116 militants died. One soldier was killed and at least two vehicles lost.

A senior official in Cameroon's Far North region confirmed Wednesday's attack and the toll and said it was followed by another attack overnight for which casualties are unknown.

The army determines death tolls either visually or by counting the number of vehicles it destroys and estimating how many militants each vehicle carried said the official who declined to be identified.