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Boko Haram suspected of further abductions and fatal bus station blast
Sixty more women and girls reported kidnapped in Nigeria
(35 minutes later)
Dozens more women and girls are reported to have been kidnapped in Nigeria and a bomb has left five people dead in a northern town. The abductions and the bombing have added to doubts about the government’s claim that the Islamist group Boko Haram has agreed a truce.
Sixty women and girls have been kidnapped from two towns in north-east Nigeria, according to reports, dealing a fresh blow to government claims of a truce with the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
As reports emerged that extremists had seized 40 women and girls from the remote north-east at the weekend – leaving a few dollars behind as a so-called “bride price” – fresh violence rocked the town of Azare in Bauchi state.
Residents of the town of Wagga told Agence France-Presse that suspected Islamist gunmen had gone door-to-door looking for young women and girls and abducted 40 of them.
A state police spokesman, Mohammed Haruna, said a bomb exploded at a bus station in Azare had killed five people, with their bodies “burnt beyond recognition”. No one claimed responsibility for the blast, which 12 others were injured, but Bauchi has been attacked repeatedly throughout Boko Haram’s five-year uprising, which has left more than 10,000 people dead.
Lazarus Baushe, an elder of the Wagga community, said: “They left 1,500 naira (£5.67) and some kola nuts in each home where they seized a woman, apparently as a bride price.”
An Azare resident, Musa Babale, said the explosion on Wednesday “shook buildings” and sent locals rushing for shelter. “The whole place was a mess,” he told AFP after visiting the site.
Wagga is close to the town of Chibok, where nearly 300 girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in April, triggering worldwide outrage and online activism. Some 219 are still missing.
Several witnesses said they believed the bomb had been planted in a parked car, but police did not give details on the nature of the device.
Enoch Mark, a priest from Chibok who previously worked in Wagga, told AFP that an estimated 40 women and girls had been taken in the recent raid, an account supported by several others.
Bus station bombings have become something of a hallmark for Boko Haram after twin attacks at a terminal on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, killed nearly 100 people earlier this year.
Witnesses in Gwarta separately reported a kidnapping at the weekend involving another 20 female victims, but details were not immediately clear.
The station in Azare, which is roughly 125 miles (200km) from the state capital, Bauchi city, is a widely used transit point for travellers coming from Nigeria’s embattled north-east, which has been under a state of emergency since May last year.
The raids will intensify scepticism over a government announcement last Friday that it had achieved a ceasefire with Boko Haram, ending a five-year insurgency that has left more than 10,000 people dead. A senior aide to the president, Goodluck Jonathan, claimed the extremist group, which has been seeking to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, had agreed to release the 219 schoolgirls.
Reports of fresh kidnappings first emerged on Saturday near Chibok, where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted in April in an attack that sparked outrage worldwide. Details of unrest in the remote region with a poor telephone network often take days to emerge.
But Bulus Mungo Park, a volunteer vigilante fighter in Chibok, said on Thursday: “This is not the first time they have declared a truce. I don’t know if it’s going to be real. They have tried to hold dialogues before but it didn’t work. They had a ceasefire but there were still attacks in some places, so we can only pray.”
Residents of the town of Wagga told AFP on Thursday that 40 women and girls had been kidnapped by suspected Islamist gunmen who went door-to-door, specifically looking for young women and girls.
Violence continued unabated over the weekend. On Wednesday a bomb blast at a bus station in the town of Azare in Bauchi state killed five people – their bodies “burnt beyond recognition” – and injured 12 others, according to the police spokesman Mohammed Haruna.
“They left 1,500 naira [£6] and some kola nuts in each home where they seized a woman, apparently as a bride price,” said Lazarus Baushe, an elder of the Wagga community.
Several witnesses said they believed the bomb had been planted in a parked car. The Azare resident Musa Babale said the explosion “shook buildings” and sent residents running for shelter. “The whole place was a mess,” he told AFP. No one claimed responsibility, but Bauchi has been a frequent target of Boko Haram attacks.
Enoch Mark, a priest from Chibok who previously worked in Wagga and has close ties there, said about 40 people were taken.
There has been no comment so far from Boko Haram’s purported leader Abubakar Shekau and hopes voiced by the presidency that the girls would be released by Tuesday this week came to nothing.
Witnesses in the nearby town of Gwarta separately reported a kidnapping at the weekend involving another 20 female victims. Further details, however, were not immediately clear.
Mike Omeri, a spokesman for the Nigerian government, said the reported kidnappings had taken place in a remote area and were still being investigated. He denied that they showed the truce was void, suggesting that they could have been carried out by opportunist groups other than Boko Haram.
Confirmation that the Bauchi bombing or the latest abductions were tied to Boko Haram would further undermine the government’s claim to have negotiated a ceasefire with the extremist group. The surprise truce was announced on Friday by Nigeria’s top military officer, Air Marshall Alex Badeh.
Nigerian negotiators are reportedly set to resume talks with Boko Haram representatives in neighbouring Chad next week.
A senior aide to the president, Goodluck Jonathan, said Boko Haram had agreed to release the 219 schoolgirls held hostage since they were abducted on 14 April in Chibok. But evidence is mounting that both deals were hollow. Violence raged throughout the weekend and the credibility of the so-called Boko Haram negotiator has been widely questioned.
There has been no comment so far from Boko Haram’s purported leader Abubakar Shekau and hopes voiced by the presidency that the girls would be released by Tuesday came to nothing.
Nigerian negotiators were reportedly set to resume talks with Boko Haram envoys in neighbouring Chad next week, but further questions will likely be asked about the identities of the purported rebel negotiators.
