Maiduguri - Nigeria's Boko
Haram militant group
kidnapped 100 people earlier
this month but most were
freed by security forces from
neighbouring Chad, a Nigerian security official and a local
self-defence member said on
Friday. The abductions took place on
10 Aug in Doron Baga in the
Kukawa area near the border
with Chad, said the official,
who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the
media. He said the terrorists were
stopped as they crossed the
Chad border by Chadian
soldiers who killed most of
them and set free most of the
captives. Muhammed Gava, a member
of the anti-Boko Haram
vigilante movement, said 20
females and about 70 young
men had been forced to board
speed boats in Lake Chad, which lies on the border
between Nigeria, Chad, Niger
and Cameroon. Nigeria's fight against the
extremist group began in 2009
but hit the international
spotlight in mid-April, when
the militants kidnapped more
than 200 schoolgirls. The girls have still not been freed.
More than 4 000 people -
mostly civilians - have been
killed this year alone by all
sides in the conflict, which
include Nigerian security forces, Amnesty International
said on 5 Aug. This compares
to an estimated 3 600 people
killed in the first four years of
the Islamic insurgency. While the group's attacks are
mostly in northeast Nigeria,
Boko Haram has detonated
bombs as far away as Lagos,
the commercial capital in
Nigeria's southwest.