According to local news reports, dozens of internally displaced persons have been abducted by Boko Haram insurgents in Gamboru Ngala, a town in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Borno. According to reports, most of the abducted persons are young girls, with the tally somewhere between 50 and over 300 people.

A source who spoke with local news publication, Daily Trust, said that 319 young girls and some other young boys were taken when they went into a bush in the western part of town to fetch firewood for domestic and commercial purposes. According to the source, three girls who escaped and returned to Ngala stated that the insurgents took them to a village in nearby Chad Republic.

Another local resident who spoke to the BBC said that 200 people had gone into the bush for firewood, and 113 of them were kidnapped and only the very old and the very young were allowed to return to the camp. Local authorities are yet to confirm the numbers, however this event may be the largest Boko Haram-related case of kidnappings in several years.

In just over a month, it will be ten years since the terrorist group Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State. The kidnappings drew global attention to the insurgency that still continues to ravage the northern part of Nigeria, and it remains a tragedy that about 100 of the girls are yet to be found and rescued.

Back in 2015, former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari declared Boko Haram “technically defeated,” while Nigerian authorities claimed that the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, had been killed in 2021 during a clash with Boko Haram offshoot, Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP). Despite this, the Nigerian government’s claims that Boko Haram had been surmounted by security forces have been consistently met with skepticism.

This latest abduction of an unconfirmed number of people even follows a statement by the Borno State government that 95 percent of those with Boko Haram ideologies have died. The state’s Special Adviser on Security Issues, Brig. Gen. Ishaq Abdullahi also added that many ISWAP top commanders had died due to internal conflicts. However, this latest event may show a different reality.

It is also being reported that Boko Haram insurgents razed down 25 new buildings meant for returnees who had taken shelter in IDP camps due to the violence in the region. The burning of these buildings happened in the remote village of Gajibo, in Dikwa Local Government, with an eyewitness telling Daily Trustthat soldiers found IEDs and bombs at other construction sites.