Communities Struggle To Dignify Dead As 20 More Abducted By Boko Haram

Islamic terrorist sect Boko Haram have reportedly abducted more women, according to various reports, and as the Nigerian military reportedly continues to be missing in action, neglected civilians are said to be burying their dead under precarious circumstances.

 RELATED: Nigeria’s Military Refuse To Help Civilians, More Than 200 Killed By Boko Haram This Week

Last Thursday, gunman reportedly forced 20 women in Garkin Fulani in to vehicles at gunpoint. In addition, three men from a local vigilante group who were reportedly attempting to protect the women were also taken.

 The Courageous Bury Their Dead

Meanwhile, a number of areas, including Attagara, Maiduguri, and the Gwoza district, have been laying their dead to rest in spite of great danger.

Reported burials occurred in Maiduguri, where committed residents buried more than 100 people a week after being attacked. In Attagara, 110 people were buried, while 24 and 20 bodies were buried in Aganjara and Agapalwa, respectively.

According to the BBC, though, since the military has failed to come to many of these vulnerable areas, the burying of the dead has fallen on the elderly.

The BBC reports:

“Local residents, now living rough in the Mandara mountains, told the BBC on Sunday the army had still not arrived in their villages a week after the first raid.

“They say Boko Haram fighters have raised black and white jihadist flags in several villages and it is too dangerous for men to venture there so elderly women were been sent to bury the dead.”

And according to the Guardian, many bodies lay throughout the bush, while those who have fled to the mountains for safety are starving.

Ali Ndume of the Borno South Senate said, “From what those who fled told us, there are more corpses in nearby bushes and the mountainside. Many people that fled the communities are also trapped on the hills, as they are without food or water.”

Meanwhile, BBC Nigeria Correspondent Will Ross said that the government is “reluctant” to acknowledge the attacks in Gwoza.

The recent abductions add to the nearly 300 kidnappings performed by Boko Haram in the last few months. On April 14th, the sect kidnapped nearly 300 students while they were taking exams at Chibok’s Government Secondary School. Then in May, they would forcibly take another eight girls in the night from Warabe, near the border of Cameroon and the Sambisa Forest Reserve.

Between the abductions and the viciously coordinated assaults on civilians day by day, with Boko Haram reportedly shooting babies on the backs of their mothers, the military’s Monday announcement that they killed 50 insurgents during their “anti-terrorism operations” seems but a drop in the bucket in defense of the people of northern Nigeria.

RELATED: Boko Haram Kill Dozens More in Church, Military Officials Accused of Supplying Arms to Terrorist Group