Bring Back our Boys: Boko Haram seizes 40 boys and men from Nigerian village

Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in northeast Nigerian state Borno on New Year’s Eve‎, according to residents who fled the isolated settlement. Scores of Boko Haram militants stormed the Malari village and whisked away the males, aged between 10 and 23, into the nearby Sambisa forest, believed to be one of the Islamists’ major bases. The news of the abductions came out only days later, when residents who fled the village arrived in the state capital Maiduguri late on Friday.

People ran out of their houses in fear but they warned no one should disobey them. They took away over 40 (male) youths mostly between the ages of 15 to 23. As I am talking to you now, there is no youth in our village.

Witness Mohammed Zarami, who fled to the northeast city of Maiduguri on foot

Boko Haram fighters have abducted hundreds of people in the past year. Boys are recruited as fighters and the girls as sex slaves, security officials say. Its five-year-old uprising for an Islamic state is the gravest security threat to Africa’s top economy. Parents of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist rebels in April have said they are appealing to the United Nations for help after losing hope that the Nigerian government would rescue them.

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