The Nigerian Army has denied reports making the rounds in social media and some mainstream media that suspected Boko Haram insurgents abducted 22 women in a raid at Pulka, a village near the boarder with Cameroon.
In a statement on Saturday, the Army described the report as complete falsehood, stating the that for the aviodance of doubt, that Pulka is completely fortified and has not been breached.
The Army was reacting to a report that twenty two girls and women have been kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in two separate raids in Borno State.
In the said report, residents and vigilantes in northeast Nigeria, the terrorists raided Pulka, a village near the border with Cameroon, where 18 girls were kidnapped.
A community leader in Pulka was said to have told AFP that the terrorists kidnapped the girls around 6 am on Thursday.
“Boko Haram fighters from Mamman Nur camp arrived in pickup vans around 6:00 am and seized 14 young girls aged 17 and below while residents fled into the bush,” a Pulka community leader was quoted to have told AFP by phone.
“They picked four other girls who were fleeing the raid they came across in the bush outside the village,” said the source who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
The source also revealed that the Boko Haram kidnappers belonged to the faction headed by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, son of Mohammed Yusuf, Boko Haram’s founder.
Barnawi became leader of the sect in 2016 as a replacement to Abubakar Shekau, who had pledged allegiance to the ISIS in 2015.
Another resident of the town was reported to have confirmed the kidnap to AFP: “They didn’t harm anyone during the raid and they made no attempt to shoot people running away from the village.”
The second raid was reported to have occurred in Dumba, a village close to Lake Chad, where a casualty was recorded. The terrorists killed a herdsman who tried to escape after refusing to pay protection money, according to Adamu Ahmed, a member of a vigilante group in the town.
“When the Boko Haram gunmen came for the money they realised he had left with everything and they decided to go after him on their motorcycles. They caught up with him near Dumba where they slaughtered him and shot dead 50 of his cattle. They took four women from the man’s family and the rest of the herd,” Ahmed was qouted to have said.