BOKO HARAM ABDUCTS 7 TRAVELLERS

 The source, who witnessed the incident, said the attackers were all armed and some were dressed in military uniforms, while an eyewitness, (namewitheld) said the attack took place a few kilometres from Auno village

 “They came in two Hilux jeeps; and as we were driving towards Auno, after Jakana village, they stormed the highway and stopped a Volkswagen golf car that was ahead and forced every person, including the driver out,” the source said.

“While this was happening, a 19-seater Toyota Hiace bus of the Adamawa Sunshine Toyota ran into the scene and could not escape the gunmen. So they forced two passengers on the bus to come down and then took all of them away in their vehicle.

“While this was happening, our driver quickly reversed back and made a u-turn to Jakana where we joined other vehicles there.We spent about two hours and 30 minutes in Jakana until we saw a reticulated truck coming from the direction of Maiduguri. After gauging the risk, all the vehicles that stopped at Jakana decided to summon the courage to proceed carefully until we got to the scene of the attack.

‘At the spot, we met the golf car abandoned in the middle of the road with all the doors left open. When we got to Auno, we saw the driver of Adamawa Sunshine being questioned by soldiers. He then told our driver that two of his passengers have been taken away.”

The military had on Tuesday planned to evacuate the entire communities to an IDP camp in order to carry out search operations in the area, but their plan was thwarted by the Borno State Governor who raised concerns that the exercise would put more persons in the state capital in danger.

Penpushing reports that, he also said the military did not inform the state and federal governments before executing the plan, and  advised that the military and other security agencies should step up their operations on the highway rather than “closing the road.”