ICC Note:
According to village residents, armed Boko Haram militants abducted 40 women from Garkin Fulani Village in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State Saturday afternoon. Borno officials, speaking Monday, confirmed the abduction, but stated that only 20 woman had been abducted. According to witnesses, those abducted were young mothers. One in an alleged series of kidnappings across that region, Boko Haram is expected to ransom the women to help finance its ongoing campaign of terror. Roughly translated as “Western education is forbidden,” Boko Haram is a radical, Islamic insurgency bent on establishing a separate Islamic state ruled by Sharia law. The United States designated Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization in November of 2013. A United Nations Security Council designated the group a known al-Qaeda affiliate last month.
06/09/2014 Nigeria (CNN) – Suspected Boko Haram militants kidnapped at least 20 young women over the weekend in northeastern Nigeria, 8 kilometers from a town where more than 200 schoolgirls were taken nearly two months ago, local officials said Monday.
The incident in the village of Garkin Fulani is the latest in a series of abductions for ransom in the area, according to an official with the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, the umbrella union of all nomadic Fulani in the country.
The MACBAN official, who is in Garkin Fulani, put the number of women kidnapped at as many as 40.
The suspected militants came into the village in broad daylight on Saturday, heavily armed and wearing military uniforms.
“(They) took away 40 women, all of them young mothers,” said the official, who asked not to be named for safety reasons.
A Borno state official confirmed the abduction but said only 20 women were abducted.
“We are working to establish the circumstances surrounding the abduction,” the government official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the incident.
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