Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have kidnapped 40 boys and young men in a remote village in Borno state on New Year’s Eve‎, residents who fled the isolated settlement said on Saturday.

The suspected Boko Haram militants stormed the Malari village and whisked away the males, aged between 10 and 23, into the nearby Sambisa forest, believed to be one of the Islamists’ major bases.

Malari village lies 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) from the Sambisa forest and close to the town of Gwoza, which the militants captured last June declaring it part of their caliphate.

The news of the abductions came out only days later, when residents who fled the village arrived in the state capital Maiduguri late on Friday.

“They came in pick-up trucks armed with guns and gathered all the men in the village outside the home of the village chief where they preached to us before singling out 40 of our boys and taking them away,” a witness Bulama Muhammad told AFP.

“My two sons and three nephews were among those taken away by the Boko Haram‎ gunmen and we believe they are going to use them as conscripts,” Muhammad said.

“When we heard of the kidnap of 40 boys in Malari by Boko Haram we decided to leave because we could be the next target,” said Alaramma Babagoni, who fled from the nearby village of Mulgwi.

There was no immediate comment on the incident from the military in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram is still holding in captivity more than 200 schoolgirls it abducted from their school in Chibok in Borno state last April.