Suspected Boko Haram militants have seized a military base outside the Nigerian town of Baga near Lake Chad after engaging troops in a fierce battle that lasted several hours, witnesses said on Sunday.
“They [the militants] overwhelmed the troops and forced them to abandon the base which the gunmen took over,” local resident Usman Danssubdu said after fleeing to neighbouring Chad following Saturday’s raids. The base is used by the Multinational Joint Task Force, which was established in 1998 to battle cross-border crime but whose mandate was expanded to fighting Boko Haram when the Islamist group emerged. The force is made up of troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad.
On Friday, the extremists kidnapped about 40 boys and young men, aged 12 to 25, in the village of Malari in northeast Nigeria.
