Militants have stormed a remote village in north-eastern Nigeria, killing at least 33 people and kidnapping about 200, a survivor has told the BBC.
He said that suspected Boko Haram militants had seized young men, women and children from Gumsuri village.
The attack happened on Sunday but news has only just emerged, after survivors reached the city of Maiduguri.
The BBC headline is peculiar: Boko Haram unrest: Nigerian militants ‘kidnap 200 villagers’. It’s not “unrest” – it’s organized murder and kidnapping. And the people doing it aren’t really “militants”; their goal is to kill some people and enslave others. Calling them “militants” makes it sound as if they have genuine political goals, but it’s not at all clear that they do. It’s much clearer that they love violence and murder and sexual enslavement.
Residents told the BBC that armed militants attacked the border town of Amchide on Wednesday, arriving in two vehicles with many others on foot.
They raided the market area, setting fire to shops and more than 50 houses.
They’re armed criminals. Why dignify them with the title “militants”?
Guess who the people “kidnapped” were.
A vigilante group that had protected the village from previous attacks was overpowered by the militants, AFP reported.
“After killing our youths, the insurgents have taken away our wives and daughters,” a resident who fled to Maiduguri was quoted as saying.
Militants, insurgents, yadda yadda – they’re men who kill other men and enslave women. That’s their “politics”; that’s their “ideology.”
Where do these people get their guns and money from? And while we’re at it: ditto for the Lord’s Resistance Army and a few others (ISIS? but they had a dysfunctional country to loot).
That’s a good question. They clearly have a lot of guns.
The cold war left behind absolutely ENORMOUS stashes of infantry weapons. Something over 200 million AK-47 were made, they are astonishingly rugged, and have been available for scrap-metal prices.
‘Militants,’ ‘insurgents,’ among the pseudo-progressive they are even called ‘resistance fighters.’ Pretty much because Islam. Twenty five years ago, Khomeini called for the murder of Salman Rushdie, and the Western press translated it into ‘execution.’ We still see this evasive language now, when ISIS victims are described as ‘executed.’
Infantry weapons and ammunition are remarkably durable. Designed to be reliable under the worse battlefield conditions they can stay viable for well over a century. Weapons built for the Boar war in 1881 are still being bought, sold, and fired. With a little care. kept clean, dry and oiled occasionally; they will still be shooting for another century. The reason we see fewer old arms is that they are largely obsolete and out of style, not ineffective.