KUMMABZA, Nigeria, June 24 (UPI) -- Up to 90 people were abducted in northeastern Nigeria by suspected Boko Haram militants over the weekend, witnesses said.
Although authorities have not confirmed the incident, reports from the village of Kummabza, in Borno State, indicated about 60 girls and women, and possibly 30 boys, were kidnapped after the village was attacked by extremist Muslim militants of Boko Haram.
Boko Haram, which seeks an Islamist state in Nigeria -- a country nearly equally divided between Muslims and Christians -- has been blamed for a series of similar abductions, notably an assault in April in which over 200 girls were kidnapped. The assaults continue, despite a declared state of emergency in the area. Its typical methodology is to exchange the hostages for detained members of their own group.
On Monday, an explosion on the campus of a medical school in Kano killed at least eight people and injured at least 20, although it was not clear if Boko Haram was responsible. The group was blamed for a massacre, earlier in June, of what Nigerian media termed hundreds of people near the country's border with Cameroon.
Cameroon and Nigeria have each deployed thousands of troops in search of the militants.
