Boko Haram Abducts 30 Adolescent Boys and Girls in Mafa, Loses 39 Fighters to Cameroon Army

The Boko Haram insurgents group have abducted about 30 adolescent boys and girls, some of them as young as 11 inMafa village, northeastern Nigeria .A local village chief told reporters on Sunday.

“The insurgents… grabbed young people, boys and girls, from our region,” said Alhaji Shettima Maina, who is in charge of the Mafa village. “They took all boys aged 13 and over… and all girls aged 11 and more. According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days.”

“They took all boys aged 13 and over… and all girls aged 11 and more. According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days.”

Another village elder, Mallam Ashiekh Mustapha, confirmed the account.

Both men said 17 people were also killed in recent days in a Boko Haram attack on the nearby village of Ndongo.

With the 30 kids captured at the weekend, the number of Boko Haram recent captives has ballooned to about 90, excluding the 219 schoolgirls captured last April in Chibok, Borno state. The recent captives were taken fromAdamawa and Borno states.

Meanwhile, Cameroonian troops killed 39 Boko Haram fighters in clashes with the Islamists, who were carrying out three raids on Cameroon’s territory, the defence ministry said Sunday.

Friday’s fighting in the far north of Cameroon near Nigeria also claimed four civilian lives, the ministry said in a statement sent to AFP.

Their latest attack targeted the village of Glawi, “killing four Nigerian refugees and wounding one Cameroonian, before being pushed back by defence forces which pursued them until the borders,” the ministry said, adding that a dozen militants were killed by troops.

Another two groups of Boko Haram Islamists entered Cameroon at around the same time, but were “immediately intercepted and neutralised by our defence forces who destroyed three 4×4 vehicles equipped with machine guns, killing 27 assailants,” said the ministry statement.

The toll issued by the ministry has not been confirmed by independent sources. There were also no details on any casualties suffered by the army.