NEWS & POLITICS
60 killed as Boko Haram torches homes in northeast Nigeria
Boko Haram militants carried out a deadly nighttime assault on a village in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, leaving more than 60 people dead, including seven soldiers, according to local sources cited by Reuters. The victims were largely residents who had only recently returned to their homes after years of displacement.
Enos Denhere
The Nigerian military confirmed the casualties, noting that security forces have intensified counterinsurgency operations across Borno in recent months to curb the threat posed by Boko Haram and its splinter faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Analysts and residents told Reuters that recent military offensives have done little to stem militant violence, which has now spread from Nigeria’s northeast to the northwest.
On Friday night, at about 8:30 p.m., armed fighters stormed the village of Darul Jamal, near Banki in Bama local government area of Borno State. The assailants opened fire and set homes ablaze in a community that had only been resettled last month after years of displacement.
Babagana Mala, a resident who fled with soldiers to Bama town—about 46 kilometers (29 miles) away—told Reuters that villagers had repeatedly warned the military about Boko Haram militants massing nearby. “We had been warning the military about Boko Haram gathering near our town for three days, but no action was taken,” he said. “They overwhelmed the soldiers who fled with us to Bama.”
At least 13 drivers and laborers working on reconstruction projects were killed in the raid, Reuters reported. More than 20 houses and 10 buses were also destroyed.
Borno State governor Babagana Zulum, visiting the charred remains of the village on Saturday, told Agence France-Presse: “It is very sad, this community was resettled only some months ago, and they went about their normal life."
The Boko Haram insurgency has killed more than 40,000 people and forced over two million from their homes, with Borno State at the heart of the conflict.
Efforts to contain the violence have been further undermined by Niger’s decision to withdraw its troops from a regional counterinsurgency force.
Boko Haram drew global condemnation in April 2014 after abducting more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in Borno—a mass kidnapping that spotlighted the group’s brutality and galvanized international outrage.
