Dozens Said to Die in Boko Haram Attack
Dozens Said to Die in Boko Haram Attack
The New York Times, 09 Jan 2015
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/africa/dozens-said-to-have-died-in-boko-haram-attack.html
By ADAM NOSSITER
DAKAR, Senegal — Refugees in northeast Nigeria fleeing an attack by the Islamist group Boko Haram have spoken of dozens of civilian deaths and scores of houses destroyed in an already hard-hit fishing village near Lake Chad.
Local officials and witnesses who have fled to the regional capital, Maiduguri, described a days-long rampage of shooting, looting and arson. The scorched-earth tactics they described were consistent with those used previously by Boko Haram during an insurgency now entering its sixth year.
In a single week from Dec. 27, the Nigeria Security Tracker kept by the Council on Foreign Relations counted about 56 people killed by Boko Haram in the region, and 40 abductions. That tally, relatively light in a conflict that has killed thousands, nonetheless indicates the terrorist group’s modus operandi — a ferocious policy designed to stamp out the few elements of state authority that exist in the remote region.
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No witness or official was able to give a precise number of the dead in the village, Baga. They said the killing began last Saturday, after the militants overpowered Nigerian soldiers at a military outpost there. Then the fighters turned on the residents.
Continue reading the main story
100 MILES
NIGER
Lake Chad
CHAD
Baga
NIGERIA
Maiduguri
BORNO
CAMEROON
WEST AFRICA
Area of
detail
Abuja
NIGERIA
Lagos
Gulf of Guinea
“They are following them to the bush, whether it is a man or a boy, they shoot them,” Alhaji Baba Abahassan, the Baga District head, said from Maiduguri. “Our people ran into the water. They are breaking houses and shops. They break each and every house and shop.”
“After taking the goods, they put fire, and burn this place,” he said. “Even now, if they see a man, they will kill you. They killed many people, but nobody has the exact number. If I say this is the exact number of killed, I am telling lies.”
The latest attack on Baga is the second time in less than two years that the fishing town near the borders with Niger and Chad has been sacked. The first time, in April 2013, the destruction and killing were the work of the military, according to witnesses and human rights groups. Some 200 people were killed then by enraged soldiers, witnesses said, and thousands of homes were burned by the military.
Boko Haram has now captured or sacked many of the small towns in Maiduguri’s orbit, and appears to be encircling the city of several million, whose population has swelled with thousands of refugees. It did much the same thing last summer, but confounded expectations by refraining from making a move on the city, northeastern Nigeria’s regional hub.
It is not clear whether the group will do so now. Nor is it known what dominion it exercises over the villages and small towns its fighters have attacked. The governor of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the bustling capital, said the Islamists have imposed the crudest form of Shariah, or Islamic law, on these places.
The governor, Kashim Shettima, is among those who expect Boko Haram to continue to pressure Maiduguri. “The Boko Haram strategy is to strangulate the city, and make it the capital of their caliphate,” he said in an interview from the Nigerian capital, Abuja. “They have captured all the outlying towns. The Boko Haram is better armed than ever before.”
The group’s easy defeat of the Nigerian soldiers at Baga last week would seem to support the governor’s point.
A survivor of the attack, Hauwa’u Bukar, said the assailants were methodical and vicious. “When they neutralized the soldiers, they proceeded to Baga and started killing everyone on sight,” said Ms. Bukar, whose husband died in the attack. “There was no pity in their eyes. Even old men and children were killed.”
A correspondent for The New York Times contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
DAKAR, Senegal — Refugees in northeast Nigeria fleeing an attack by the Islamist group Boko Haram have spoken of dozens of civilian deaths and scores of houses destroyed in an already hard-hit fishing village near Lake Chad.
Local officials and witnesses who have fled to the regional capital, Maiduguri, described a days-long rampage of shooting, looting and arson. The scorched-earth tactics they described were consistent with those used previously by Boko Haram during an insurgency now entering its sixth year.
In a single week from Dec. 27, the Nigeria Security Tracker kept by the Council on Foreign Relations counted about 56 people killed by Boko Haram in the region, and 40 abductions. That tally, relatively light in a conflict that has killed thousands, nonetheless indicates the terrorist group’s modus operandi — a ferocious policy designed to stamp out the few elements of state authority that exist in the remote region.
Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE
Charlie Hebdo Suspects Dead in Raid; Hostage Taker in Paris Is Also KilledJAN. 9, 2015
President François Hollande after holding a crisis meeting.Days of Sirens, Fear and Blood: ‘France Is Turned Upside Down’ JAN. 9, 2015
No witness or official was able to give a precise number of the dead in the village, Baga. They said the killing began last Saturday, after the militants overpowered Nigerian soldiers at a military outpost there. Then the fighters turned on the residents.
Continue reading the main story
100 MILES
NIGER
Lake Chad
CHAD
Baga
NIGERIA
Maiduguri
BORNO
CAMEROON
WEST AFRICA
Area of
detail
Abuja
NIGERIA
Lagos
Gulf of Guinea
“They are following them to the bush, whether it is a man or a boy, they shoot them,” Alhaji Baba Abahassan, the Baga District head, said from Maiduguri. “Our people ran into the water. They are breaking houses and shops. They break each and every house and shop.”
“After taking the goods, they put fire, and burn this place,” he said. “Even now, if they see a man, they will kill you. They killed many people, but nobody has the exact number. If I say this is the exact number of killed, I am telling lies.”
The latest attack on Baga is the second time in less than two years that the fishing town near the borders with Niger and Chad has been sacked. The first time, in April 2013, the destruction and killing were the work of the military, according to witnesses and human rights groups. Some 200 people were killed then by enraged soldiers, witnesses said, and thousands of homes were burned by the military.
Boko Haram has now captured or sacked many of the small towns in Maiduguri’s orbit, and appears to be encircling the city of several million, whose population has swelled with thousands of refugees. It did much the same thing last summer, but confounded expectations by refraining from making a move on the city, northeastern Nigeria’s regional hub.
It is not clear whether the group will do so now. Nor is it known what dominion it exercises over the villages and small towns its fighters have attacked. The governor of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the bustling capital, said the Islamists have imposed the crudest form of Shariah, or Islamic law, on these places.
The governor, Kashim Shettima, is among those who expect Boko Haram to continue to pressure Maiduguri. “The Boko Haram strategy is to strangulate the city, and make it the capital of their caliphate,” he said in an interview from the Nigerian capital, Abuja. “They have captured all the outlying towns. The Boko Haram is better armed than ever before.”
The group’s easy defeat of the Nigerian soldiers at Baga last week would seem to support the governor’s point.
A survivor of the attack, Hauwa’u Bukar, said the assailants were methodical and vicious. “When they neutralized the soldiers, they proceeded to Baga and started killing everyone on sight,” said Ms. Bukar, whose husband died in the attack. “There was no pity in their eyes. Even old men and children were killed.”
A correspondent for The New York Times contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.