23 October 2014

Boko Haram abducts more women and girls


The BBC has an article about Boko Haram:
Dozens of women and girls from two villages in Nigeria's north-eastern Adamawa state have been abducted by suspected militants, residents say. The abductions have not been confirmed by the authorities, but residents say they took place a day after the military announced it had agreed a ceasefire with the Boko Haram group.
The government hopes the Islamist group will free more than two hundred girls seized in April of 2014 as part of negotiations. Boko Haram has not confirmed the truce.
Following the ceasefire announcement, the government said further talks with Boko Haram were due to be held this week in neighboring Chad.
The government failure to secure the schoolgirls' release has sparked mass protests.
In a separate incident, at least five people were killed in a bomb blast at a bus station in a town in the northern state of Bauchi. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
News of the new abductions came as MPs approved a one billion dollar loan, requested by the president in July of 2014, to upgrade military equipment and train more units fighting the north-eastern insurgency. But they asked the finance minister to give the chamber more details about how the external borrowing would be sourced. Security already costs the country close to six billion dollars, roughly a quarter of the federal budget.
The abduction of the schoolgirls from their boarding school in Borno state sparked a global campaign to pressure the government to secure their release. Borno is the group's stronghold. It has been under a state of emergency, along with neighbouring Adamawa and Yobe states, for more than a year.
The villages that were attacked, Waga Mangoro and Garta, are close to Madagali and Michika towns, which have been under the control of the Islamist militant group for several weeks. According to people in the area, a large group of insurgents attacked the villages, rounding up women and girls. They forced them to harvest groundnuts on a farm, then abducted those who were teenagers or in their early twenties.
Communication with the affected area is difficult, which is why it takes time for news of attacks to filter out. Other raids by suspected Boko Haram fighters were reported by residents in Adamawa and Borno over the weekend.
Since the state of emergency was declared in May of 2013, Boko Haram has taken many women and children hostage and has agreed to some prisoner swaps.
The name Boko Haram translates as Western education is forbidden, and the militants have carried out raids on schools and colleges, seeing them as a symbol of Western culture.
Who are Boko Haram?
The group was founded in 2002.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau is the most wanted man in Nigeria
Initially focused on opposing Western education; Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
Launched military operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state
Thousands have been killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria; the group has also attacked police and UN headquarters in the capital, Abuja.
Some three million people are affected.
It was declared a terrorist group by the US in 2013.
Rico says he's still boggled that they can't find and kill these idiots...

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