The Boko Haram Takfiri terror group has kidnapped nearly two dozen girls and women in two separate attacks in northeast Nigeria as fears grow of more such raids amid the Nigerian military’s failure to contain the Daesh-linked militancy. Witnesses said on Friday that in one of the incidents, Boko Haram militants raided the village of Pulka in the volatile state of Borno near the border with Cameroon, abducting 18 girls.

A Pulka community leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the militants arrived in pickup vans in the morning and “seized 14 young girls aged 17 and below” while residents were running away into the bush.

“They picked four other girls who were fleeing the raid they came across in the bush outside the village,” added the source. Confirming the incident, a resident said the girls were likely to end up as brides for the members of the terrorist group. The second raid was outside the village of Dumba, close to Lake Chad, where the militants killed a herdsman for refusing to pay protection money.

A member of a vigilante group in the region said the Boko Haram terrorists slaughtered the herdsman and shot dead 50 of his cattle, also taking four women from the man’s family. The latest abductions recalled a similar raid back in 2014, when the Takfiri group kidnapped 276 girls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno. About 80 of the girls managed to escape afterward or were swapped for a number of Boko Haram prisoners, but the fate of the rest remains unknown.