Suspected members of the violent Islamic
sect, Boko Haram, who laid siege to the Borno highway, have killed 10
persons. The insurgents also abducted a woman and her two-year- old
child.
“We were coming back from Cross Kawa on
Monday at about 2.30pm when Boko Haram members appeared in about 10
vehicles, including an LX 470 jeep and opened fire on motorists on the
road,” a driver who fled the scene of the incident, Ali Yakub, narrated
to newsmen in Maiduguri on Wednesday
Yakub, who revealed that the incident
occurred at Madari village on the Maiduguri- Baga Road, said he was
badly shaken when he saw “a man who looks like a Chadian in a Hilux
vehicle mounted with Multi Purpose Machine gun opening fire on any
vehicle he came across.”
Yakub said he was spared by the group who
asked where he hailed from and he told them he came from Yusufari and
that he was heading to Bindari with his passengers.
He said he witnessed the sect members slaughtering the driver and five passengers of a Peugeot vehicle.
“They also abducted a young woman and her
two years old child. A Mercedes Benz driver on top speed was shot at
and killed with all the occupants of his car,” Yakub said.
Efforts to reach the Police Public
Relations Officer in the state, DSP Gideon Jibrin, for official
confirmation were unsuccessful. He could not be reached on the phone.
Meanwhile, some members of the Boko Haram
sect have been arrested by the military and members of the youth
vigilance group in Maiduguri.
A
member of the youth vigilance group, Abba Kolo, told our correspondent
in Maiduguri on Wednesday that the suspects, who had disguised
themselves as internally displaced persons from Bama, were arrested by
the military and vigilantes from one of the IDPs camps in the town.
He said that the suspected insurgents
arrived in Maiduguri along with those that fled Bama during the Boko
Haram attack on the town few months back.
He said, “The arrested Boko Haram
insurgents, who fled Bama along with IDPs and had formed a syndicate
along the Bama Road at Yanshayi opposite Tashan Bama in Maiduguri, the
Borno State capital, were rounded up by soldiers.”
He said those that were arrested were
brought to the headquarters of Sector 3, around Gidan Madara milk shop
on Tuesday evening and were later taken to Giwa Barracks within the
town.
Ibrahim, who said this was not the first
time members of the insurgents who had infiltrated Maiduguri as refugees
were arrested, said, “Those who were arrested yesterday (Tuesday) were
said to have been seen on several occasions isolating themselves from
the rest of the people at the camp.
“Guns were seen with some of them, which
made others at the camp to tip off the military and the volunteer youths
who subsequently rounded them up.”
A military source, who spoke anonymously,
confirmed the arrest to our correspondent. “On receiving information
from a member of the public that some people were having illicit
meetings at one of the IDPs camp in Maiduguri, we moved in to round them
up and we were able to arrest some,” the source said.
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