Some 192 people were released over the weekend as fierce fighting was reported in Maiduguri on January 25, 2015.
Information garnered from international media indicates that the Nigerian terrorist sect, Boko Haram, has released nearly 200 hostages, most of them women, who were kidnapped from a village in the northeast Nigerian State of Yobe. According to Nigeria’s newspaper, “This Day,” a total of 192 people were released on Friday January 23 from two Islamist enclaves, where they had been kept since a January 6 raid on Katarko, 20 kilometres from the State capital Damaturu. In all, 218 women and children were abducted.
“Boko Haram has released 192 of our women they kidnapped early this month,” AFP reports quote Goni Mari, a Katarko community leader, as saying. Reports say the group brought the adducted people in two batches in four trucks and dropped them at Girbuwa village, eight kilometres from Damaturu, from where villagers conveyed them to the city and they were taken into government custody.
According to This Day newspaper, the raid on Katarko saw dozens of Boko Haram gunmen storm the village, where they killed 25 men and burnt homes and businesses before kidnapping the women and children. Reports say the attack was apparently in retaliation over a raid by local hunters and vigilantes in nearby Buni Yadi, where several militants were killed and scores of others were arrested, vigilantes said at the time.
Meanwhile, at press time yesterday, Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, was reportedly under attack by the Boko Haram militants. The religious extremists were said to be carrying out the attacks from two fronts simultaneously. However, the Nigerian military, going by diverse media reports, were said to have risen to the occasion and were fighting, using air and ground assaults, to repel the assailants. BBC reports said the Nigerian military were carrying out air strikes, and a curfew has been imposed. “Maiduguri is home to tens of thousands of people who have fled Boko Haram attacks and was visited on Saturday by President Goodluck Jonathan,” reports further said.
