Nigeria: Boko Haram kidnap over 500 women and children in Damasak
Islamist militants Boko Haram have snatched at least 500 children from a town in northern Nigeria, according to locals.
Residents in the town of Damasak, freed earlier this month (March 2015) by troops from nearby Chad and Niger, told the news agency Reuters how militants had earlier rounded up women and children.
Damasak trader Souleymane Ali said: “They took 506 young women and children. They killed about 50 of them before leaving. We don’t know if they killed others after leaving, but they took the rest with them.”
Ali said his wife and three daughters had been seized by the militants, who last year snatched hundreds of young girls from Chibok.