The local mayor in Niger State has raised an alarm that suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped 15 girls overnight in a village near Toumour on Saturday. Boukar Mani Orthe, the mayor of the town in Niger’s Diffa region near the border with Nigeria, said about 50 unidentified armed men seized the girls in a village about nine kilometres from the town centre. 
He also added that on Thursday suspected Boko Haram fighters killed eight people working at French drilling company Foraco’s water well site in Toumour. Boko Haram violence has killed thousands of civilians and forced millions to flee their homes in the large Lake Chad basin region. The kidnapping of schoolgirls has been a Boko Haram horror mark, since its fighters in 2014 kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, in Nigeria.
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