Boko Haram member
NIAMEY – Suspected Boko Haram Islamist militants killed nine people and abducted dozens more in southern Niger on Sunday night, the local mayor and a journalist said.
People walk along a main street in Maroua, the capital of the far northern region of Cameroon, on November 11, 2014. Once a bustling city, Maroua is feeling the brunt of fighting of the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram as trade and tourism have significantly dropped in the past year. Motorcycle taxis are the main means of transport in the city, but traffic is prohibited in the evening as part of the fight against the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram as attacks by the Islamist militants in the far north of the country using motorcycles have increased. Boko Haram’s five-year insurgency in neighboring Nigeria has left thousands dead, and the Islamists have occasionally carried out attacks over the border. Cameroon has deployed more than 1,000 soldiers in the extreme northeast of the country to counter the Islamist threat. AFP PHOTO
The attackers rode camels into the village of Ngalewa, about 50 km (30 miles) north of the border with Nigeria – home of the Boko Haram insurgency – said Maman Nour, the director of a community radio station in the nearby town of Kabelawa.
“They killed nine people and they kidnapped around 30,” said Nour, who had spoken to fleeing villagers.
Abba Gata Issa, mayor of the district, confirmed the nine dead and said around 40 women and children had been kidnapped.
Boko Haram launches frequent cross-border raids from its strongholds in northeastern Nigeria and has killed more than 20,000 people during its eight-year insurgency.
Last week bombers killed two people and wounded 11 others at a U.N.-managed camp in the same region of Niger that houses thousands of people who have fled Boko Haram violence. It was the first suicide attack in Niger’s southern Diffa region in a year.
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