KANO, Nigeria: Extremists killed two people and kidnapped 20 children in Nigeria’s Borno state, where Islamist militants are waging a more than decade-long insurgency, a community leader and residents said Friday.
Thursday’s assault on Piyemi village took place near Chibok town where eight years ago Boko Haram extremists abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in an attack that sparked international outcry.
Fighters from the Daesh in West Africa Province (DWAP) stormed Piyemi on Thursday afternoon, killing two men and seizing 13 girls and seven boys, according to the residents and the community leader.
The DWAP militants dressed in military uniforms started shooting and looting shops in the village and setting homes on fire, they said.
“They shot dead two people and took away 13 girls and seven boys aged between 12 and 15,” local resident Samson Bulus told AFP by phone.
The militants who attacked from nearby Sambisa forest herded “the 20 kidnapped children into a truck they seized from the village and drove them into the forest,” said another resident Silas John.
Military officials were not immediately available to comment on the attack.
But a local Chibok government official confirmed the attack without giving details.
A community leader also gave similar details about the extremist assault and the abducted children.
“This attack was the third in recent days and underscores the risks villages around Chibok face from extremists,” said Ayuba Alamson, the community leader from Chibok.
Thursday’s kidnapping came as Nigeria struggles with a string of abduction-for-ransom attacks on schools by criminal gangs over the last year in its northwestern states.
Around 1,500 schoolchildren were seized last year in 20 mass kidnappings in schools across the region, with 16 students losing their lives, according to the UN children welfare agency UNICEF.
Most of the hostages were released after negotiations with the criminal gangs known locally as bandits, but some are still in captivity in forest hideouts.
Following Thursday’s raid, residents said they returned to Piyemi village Friday after spending the night in the bush to escape the DWAP attackers.
The extremists razed part of the village, including a church, and burnt 10 vehicles in the three-hour long attack, said resident John.
Troops have been stationed in Chibok since the infamous 2014 schoolgirl abduction but deadly extremist raids continue in the area, with the militants launching attacks from their nearby forest enclaves.
DWAP, which split from Boko Haram in 2016 seized Sambisa forest from rival Boko Haram following the death of Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau in May in clashes between the two factions.
More than 40,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million people displaced by the extremist conflict in the northeast of Nigeria.
Nigeria extremists kidnap 20 children: residents
https://arab.news/gnryx
Nigeria extremists kidnap 20 children: residents
- Fighters from the Daesh in West Africa Province stormed Piyemi on Thursday afternoon, killing two men and seizing 13 girls and seven boys
- A local Chibok government official confirmed the attack without giving details
US warns UK to stop arresting Palestine Action supporters
- Undersecretary of state for diplomacy: Arrests doing ‘more harm than good’ and ‘censoring’ free speech
- Group was banned in July 2025 after series of break-ins
LONDON: UK authorities should stop arresting protesters showing support for banned group Palestine Action, the White House has warned.
The US undersecretary of state for diplomacy said arrests are doing “more harm than good” and are “censoring” free speech.
Sarah Rogers told news site Semafor: “I would have to look at each individual person and each proscribed organization. I think if you support an organization like Hamas, then depending upon whether you’re coordinating, there are all these standards that get applied.
“This Palestine Action group, I’ve seen it written about. I don’t know what it did. I think if you just merely stand up and say, ‘I support Palestine Action’, then unless you are really coordinating with some violent foreign terrorist, I think that censoring that speech does more harm than good.”
So far, more than 2,000 people have been arrested in the UK for showing support for the group.
It was banned in July 2025 after a series of break-ins nationwide, including at a facility owned by a defense manufacturer and a Royal Air Force base, during which military aircraft were damaged.
Last year, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was among those arrested while protesting for Palestine Action.
The group is challenging its ban, saying it should not be compared to terrorist organizations such as the Irish Republican Army, Daesh or Al-Qaeda.
The ban has been criticized by numerous bodies, with Amnesty International calling it a case of “problematic, overly broad and draconian restrictions on free speech.”
In Scotland, prosecutors have been offering to drop charges against some protesters in return for accepting a fine of £100 ($134.30).
Adam McGibbon, who was arrested at a demonstration in Edinburgh last year, refused the offer, saying: “The fact that the authorities are offering fines equivalent to a parking ticket for a ‘terrorism offence’ shows just how ridiculous these charges are. Do supporters of (Daesh) get the same deal?
“I refuse to pay this fine, as has everyone else I know who has been offered one. Just try and put all 3,000 of us who have defied this ban so far in jail.”
Rogers said the UK is also wrong to arrest people using the phrase “globalize the intifada” while demonstrating in support of Palestine, after police in Manchester said in December that it would detain people chanting it.
“I’m from New York City where thousands of people were murdered by jihadists,” she said. referring to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “I don’t want an intifada in New York City, and I think anyone who does is disgusting, but should it be legal to say in most contexts? Yes.”
