Troops from Niger and Chad liberated the northeastern Nigerian town of Damasak from Boko Haram, but have come to a horrible realization:  More than 400 women and children cannot be accounted for, and it appears the Islamist militants have kidnapped them.  The boys are apparently being turned into child soldiers.

“The very young ones they give to madrassas,” said Borno State Senator Maina Maaji Lawan, “and male ones between 16 and 25, they conscript them and they indoctrinate them as supply channels for their horrible missions.”

Damasak suffered under Boko Haram’s draconian interpretation of Islamic sharia law during the eight month occupation.  Homes and buildings are burned out, and last week troops discovered a “killing field” of more than 70 desiccated bodies – some beheaded, others with their throats slit.

Boko Haram caused international outrage almost a year ago in April 2014 after it abducted more than 200 girls from a boarding school in Chibok town in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state.  The group's leader has said the girls have been married off.