Dozens of women and children on Saturday forcefully stopped military trucks from ferrying their husbands and fathers to the Boko Haram-seized Gwosa by locking the exit gates of a barracks in Borno State, demanding quality fighting equipment for the soldiers.
Scores of soldiers have been killed by Boko Haram in Borno State in the last few months, and many blame the inferior weapons Nigerian troops are equipped with to fight brutal insurgents. Reports say nearly 60 soldiers were killed last Wednesday in Gwosa, taken over by Boko Haram after hundreds of heavily-armed militants swooped on the border town.
After locking the gates Saturday, the women and children placed themselves as wedges before the trucks that were to drive out of Giwa Barracks of the 21 armoured brigade Maiduguri, witnesses said.
“We don’t want to be turned another set of widows, give our husbands modern and better arms, weapons and vehicles or they go nowhere!” one woman was quoted by a source as saying.Continue..