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People demonstrate a calling on the Nigerian government to rescue girls taken from a secondary school in Chibok, in the city of Abuja, Nigeria in this October 14, 2014 file photo. Photo: AP
Some 30 adolescents - some of them girls aged as young as 11 - were abducted in northeast Nigeria over the weekend by suspected Boko Haram rebels.
"The insurgents ... grabbed young people, boys and girls, from our region," said Alhaji Shettima Maina, who is in charge of the Mafa village.
"They took all boys aged 13 and over ... and all girls aged 11 and over.
"According to our information, 30 young people were abducted in the last two days."
Another village elder, Mallam Ashiekh Mustapha, confirmed the account. Both men said 17 people were killed in recent days in a Boko Haram attack on the nearby village of Ndongo.
Boko Haram has been waging a bloody insurgency since 2009.
In April, the Islamist rebel group snatched more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northeast Nigeria.
The latest kidnapping comes despite the Nigerian government declaring a truce with the insurgents and the army retaking control of Abadam in the northeast on Saturday.
But Maina said his village and areas around it were targeted in almost daily raids by Boko Haram, and many residents had fled to Maiduguri "for fear of being killed or losing their children".
In neighbouring Cameroon, where Boko Haram attacks have increased in recent months, the defence ministry said it had pushed back three incursions on Friday by militants in the country's extreme north.
The attacks and kidnappings call into doubt Nigeria's claim to have negotiated a ceasefire.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Boko Haram rebels abduct 30 youth
