FROM: SAHARA REPORTERS...
AMINU ABUBAKR AND BEN BRUMFIELD, CNN
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Kano, Nigeria (CNN) -- Boko Haram insurgents
kidnapped at least 185 women and children,
and killed 32 people in a raid in northeastern
Nigeria this week, local officials and residents
said.
Gunmen in pickup trucks attacked the village of
Gumsuri, just north of Chibok, on Sunday,
shooting down men before herding women and
children together.
Poor women in Katsina, Nigeria
Poor women in Katsina, Nigeria
"They gathered the women and children and
took them away in trucks after burning most of
the village with petrol bombs," a local
government official said on condition anonymity
for fear of reprisal.
News of the attack took four days to emerge
because of a lack of communication.
Telecommunications towers in the region had
been disabled in previous attacks.
Local officials learned of the attack from
residents who fled to Maiduguri, the capital of
Borno state, where the officials had moved a
year ago to escape Boko Haram attacks.
The militants stormed the village from two
directions, overwhelming local vigilantes who
had repelled Boko Haram attacks over the
course of the year, said Gumsuri resident Umar
Ari, who trekked for four days to Maiduguri.
"They destroyed almost half the village and
took away 185 women, girls and boys," Ari said.
Resident Modu Kalli said the militants fired
heavy machine guns on the village and poured
canisters of gasoline on houses before setting
them on fire.
"We lost everything in the attack. I escaped with
nothing, save the clothes I have on me," Kalli
said.
Hundreds of residents of Gumsuri continue to
arrive in Maiduguri, which has been struggling
to accommodate thousands of residents fleeing
towns and villages overrun by Boko Haram.
Campaign of violence
Boko Haram has terrorized northern Nigeria
regularly since 2009, attacking police, schools,
churches and civilians, and bombing
government buildings.
This month, at least one female Boko Haram
suicide bomber killed five people in Maiduguri.
Last month, suicide bombings killed nearly 180
people. More than half of the victims died in an
attack on a mosque that many suspect Boko
Haram was behind.
The group has targeted mainstream Islam,
saying that it does not represent the interests of
Nigeria's 80 million Muslims and that it perverts
Islam.
In April, Boko Haram militants drew
international condemnation when they
kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls, many of
whom they later said they sold into slavery.
At least 5,000 people have died at Boko
Haram's hands, according to a U.S.
Congressional Research Service report, making
it one of the world's deadliest terrorist
organizations.
Aminu Abubakr reported and wrote from Kano;
CNN's Ben Brumfield wrote in Atlanta.