Boko Haram militants have kidnapped more than 500 women and children from the northern Nigerian town of Damasak that was reportedly freed this month by troops from Niger and Chad, residents claim.

"They took 506 young women and children," Damasak trader Souleymane Ali said.

"They killed about 50 of them before leaving.

"We don't know if they killed others after leaving, but they took the rest with them."

Mohamed Ousmane, another trader, said the militants took his two wives and three of their children.

A 40-year-old resident who gave her name as Fana said fighters had rounded up captives in the main mosque before taking them out of town.

She said she saved her two children by hiding them in her house.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the kidnap figure, but the Islamist group has previously carried out mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria, where it wants to carve out a caliphate.

Boko Haram's abduction last April of nearly 300 schoolgirls in the region stirred international outrage and drew global attention to the group's six-year insurgency.

Troops from Niger and Chad last week found the bodies of at least 70 people in an apparent execution site under a bridge leading out of Damasak, where the streets remain strewn with debris and burnt-out cars after the fighting.

Nigerian, Chadian and Niger forces have driven militants out of a string of towns in simultaneous offensives over the past month.

Nigeria said all but three of the 20 local government areas occupied at the beginning of the year had been freed.

Nigeria's rearranged election is now due to take place on Saturday after a sharp increase in violence forced a delay in planned elections last month.

Souleymane Ali, the Damasak trader, said he was just hoping life would return to normal.

"We've seen the worst possible things you can imagine, so after a certain point there was no point in trying to leave," he said.

"They killed all our friends, our family members, so we just submitted ourselves to God."

Reuters

credit link:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/boko-haram-mass-kidnap-fears/6346210