Screenshot from a Boko Haram video dated October 31, 2014, showing leader Abubakar Shekau at center.On Sunday, June 7, a local senator and a youth organization leader confirmed that Boko Haram had freed over 400 individuals kidnapped earlier this year from a village in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria.
Samaila Kaigama, head of the Borno South Youth Alliance (Bosya), stated that 416 women and children kidnapped in Ngoshe were set free on Saturday. Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume of Borno state also confirmed the release, though he said he did not know the precise circumstances of the operation.
Bosya, which acted as an intermediary between the kidnappers and the hostages’ families, offered no additional details. No information was given on whether a ransom was paid or if security forces were involved.
A region repeatedly hit by attacks
Ngoshe is located less than 10 kilometers from the Cameroon border, in the Gwoza hills, an area considered a stronghold of Boko Haram and regularly attacked. Since 2009, the insurgency led by Boko Haram and later its rival West African branch, ISWAP, has caused tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displacements in northeastern Nigeria.
