The rights group, Human Rights Watch, has said that at least 400 women and children, including 300 primary school pupils, were abducted by Boko Haram from Damasak, Borno State, a year ago.
In a report published on its website, the HRW urged the Nigerian government to make serious efforts to secure the release of the abductees.
Describing the abduction as the largest documented abduction by Boko Haram, the group observed that the abduction has drawn less attention than the Chibok shoolgirls abduction.
“Three hundred children have been missing for a year, and yet there has been not a word from the Nigerian government”, a researcher at the HRW, Mausi Segun, said. “The authorities need to wake up and find out where the Damask children and other captives are and take urgent steps to free them”.
The report also quoted eye witnesses, who explained how the attack took place describing government’s effort to rescue the children as inadequate.
It would be recalled that Boko Haram seized the trading town of Damasak, about 200 kilometers northwest of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on November 24, 2014 but were finally dislodged between March 13 and 15, 2015, by soldiers from neighbouring Chad and Niger as part of a cross-border military operation.
According to Human Rights Watch, the fleeing insurgents took with them the 300 school pupils and an estimated 100 more women and children, who they have been holding captive ever since.
