Niger’s Regional Governor, on Tuesday said, Boko Haram terrorists have kidnapped 37 women and slit the throats of nine other people at a village in southeastern Niger.
Governor of Diffa region, Laouali Mahamane Dan Dano said the attack happened on Sunday at the village of Ngalewa, near the border with Nigeria.
He said, “Boko Haram elements… slit the throats of nine people… they took women, 37 women, and departed with them.
“The defence and security forces are already in pursuit, and we hope that in the coming days these women will be found and freed.”
The governor, who went to Ngalewa on Monday, said the village had been singled out because it was known for its resistance to the terrorist.
The village’s mayor, Abari El Hadj Daouda, told AFP by phone that the attack happened on Sunday evening, “between 22:00 and 23:00”.
The village lies a few kilometers north of the town of Kabalewa, where there was a suicide attack last Wednesday.
In April 2014, Islamist militants seized 276 schoolgirls from the remote northeast Nigerian town of Chibok, triggering global condemnation and drawing attention to the bloody Boko Haram insurgency.
Boko Haram’s eight-year of insurgency has killed at least 20,000 people and rendered many homeless.