At least 200 people, mostly women and children displaced by violence in northeastern Nigeria, were abducted by Islamic extremists while they were searching for firewood near the border with Chad, the United Nations office in Nigeria said.
The victims had left several displacement camps to look for firewood in Borno state’s Gamboru Ngala council area when they were ambushed and taken hostage, the U.N. said, in the latest attack in the conflict-hit region where frequent abductions and killings limit movement.
Locals blamed the attack on Islamic extremist rebels who launched an insurgency in Borno in 2009 seeking to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law in the region. At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced due to the violence by the militant Boko Haram group and a breakaway faction backed by the Islamic State group.
Many of those fleeing the violence are in displacement camps like the ones in Gamboru Ngala where security is limited to areas near the camp, leaving them either to starve in the camps — amid dwindling aid — or risk their safety in search of food.
