At least 47 women are missing after insurgents carried out a mass kidnapping in northeast Nigeria, anti-insurgency militia leaders told AFP on Tuesday.
They blamed an extremist group for Friday's attack in Borno State, the heart of a militant insurgency which has left more than 40,000 people dead and two million displaced since 2009.
Anti-insurgency militia leader Shehu Mada said women from displacement camps in Ngala near the Cameroon border were gathering firewood when they were "rounded up by insurgents."
"Some of the women were able to escape and returned," Mada, who helped conduct a headcount, said.
'Can't be accounted for'
"Forty-seven women from the wood-collecting mission could not be accounted for. They were kidnapped by the insurgents."
Usman Hamza, another anti-insurgency militia leader, confirmed the account, saying, "47 women... didn't return after the insurgents swooped on them."
Borno State police spokesperson Nahum Daso Kenneth said an attack took place at around 4pm (1500 GMT) on Friday, but the police could not give a precise figure for the number kidnapped or still in captivity.
Ali Bukar, an officer at the Ngala Local Government Information Unit, said he had received reports the number was even higher.
Insecurity, a major problem
Kidnapping is a major problem across Nigeria, which is also grappling with criminal militias in the northwest and a flare-up of intercommunal violence in central states.
Last month kidnappers seized at least 35 women returning from a wedding in northwestern Katsina State.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power last year promising to address insecurity in Nigeria, but critics say the violence is out of control.
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