Around 200 schoolgirls have been kidnapped by armed militiamen in the turbulent Borno region of north-east Nigeria.
The gunmen are believed to be from the Boko Haram Islamic militant group, with eye-witnesses reporting armed men bursting into the rooms where the girls were sleeping overnight and rounding them up onto lorries to be driven away.
Boko Haram, which translates at “Western education is sinful and forbidden” in the local Hausa language, has been waging a bloody insurgency for the last decade in Nigeria and frequently targets schools, with the group massacring 200 students taking an exam last week.
Local media reports that 170 houses were raised to the ground and two members of the Nigerian security forces were killed during the attack.
