Maiduguri - Nigeria's Boko Haram militant group kidnapped
100 people earlier this month but most were freed by
security forces from neighbouring Chad, a Nigerian
security official and a local self-defence member said on
Friday.
The abductions took place on 10 Aug in Doron Baga in the
Kukawa area near the border with Chad, said the official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorised to speak to the media.
He said the terrorists were stopped as they crossed the
Chad border by Chadian soldiers who killed most of them
and set free most of the captives.
Muhammed Gava, a member of the anti-Boko Haram
vigilante movement, said 20 females and about 70 young
men had been forced to board speed boats in Lake Chad,
which lies on the border between Nigeria, Chad, Niger and
Cameroon.
Nigeria's fight against the extremist group began in 2009
but hit the international spotlight in mid-April, when the
militants kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls. The girls
have still not been freed.
More than 4 000 people - mostly civilians - have been killed
this year alone by all sides in the conflict, which include
Nigerian security forces, Amnesty International said on 5
Aug. This compares to an estimated 3 600 people killed in
the first four years of the Islamic insurgency.
While the group's attacks are mostly in northeast Nigeria,
Boko Haram has detonated bombs as far away as Lagos,
the commercial capital in Nigeria's southwest.
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