Boko Haram militants have kidnapped more than 400 women and children from the northern Nigerian town of Damasak that was freed this month by troops from Niger and Chad, news reports said.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the figure, but the Islamist group has previously carried out mass kidnappings. Boko Haram's abduction last April of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the region stirred international outrage and drew global attention to the group's six-year insurgency.
Boko Haram wants to carve out a caliphate in northern Nigeria. A sharp increase in violence forced a delay in planned elections last month in Africa's most populous country.
Nigerian, Chadian and Niger forces have driven militants out of a string of towns in simultaneous offensives over the past month. Nigeria says all but three of the 20 local government areas occupied at the beginning of the year have been freed.
Source: QNA