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Despite government claims of a ceasefire, gunmen believed to be Boko Haram fighters attacked two villages and a town near the border with Niger, killing at least 8 and kidnapping others, residents told CNN Saturday.
Boko Haram has not yet
responded to the government's announcement Thursday of a ceasefire,
which an official said heralded peace in the country after some five
years of conflict with the Islamic extremist group.
In one attack, militants
ambushed travelers in the Borno state village of Shaffa, residents of
the area said, killing eight people and abducting others.
Boko Haram gunmen also
stormed the village of Waga in Adamawa state, abducting a number of
residents, including women, residents there told CNN.
Insurgents also occupied
the town of Abadam, near Niger, after killing an unknown number of
residents in their attack, residents said.
Nigerian officials said
Friday that the government had reached a ceasefire agreement with Boko
Haram, which has been waging an insurgency in the country's north since
2009.
The deal, the government
said, includes the release of more than 200 kidnapped girls whose
abduction from their boarding school shocked the world in April.
The deal, first reported
by Agence France-Presse, came Thursday night after a month of
negotiations with representatives of the group, said Hassan Tukur,
principal secretary to President Goodluck Jonathan.
Nigerian officials met with Boko Haram in Chad twice during talks mediated by Chadian President Idriss Deby, according to Tukur.
"We have agreed on the
release of the Chibok schoolgirls, and we expect to conclude on that at
our next meeting with the group's representative next week in Chad,"
Tukur said.
Doyin Okupe, a
government spokesman, said the ceasefire deal was meant not only to free
the girls but also to end the insurgency.
"On the war front, we can say there is peace now," he said Friday.
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