Boko Haram insurgents on Monday launched a fresh attack on Buratai, a small community in Borno State, where Nigeria’s army chief, Tukur Buratai, comes from, just a week after a similar attack there killed two people.
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“It was really a sad day for me to learn that there were renewed attacks in my constituency, some parts of Borno state and the north east in general by the barbaric acts of the insurgents”.
Buhari’s government recently said it was not opposed to negotiations with the sect, which has killed thousands and left around 1.5 million people evacuated during its insurgency.
While acknowledging progress made against Boko Haram following joint regional military efforts in recent months, the United Nations Security Council today encouraged increased regional cooperation to stamp out the terrorist group, which the Council strongly condemned for its ongoing deadly violence, human rights abuses and mass abductions in the Lake Chad Basin.
The Nigerian official said the suspected Boko Haram fighters, who stormed the area on motorcycles and vans, used petrol bombs and AK 47 rifles to wreak havoc on the villages. The group usually claims responsibility for such attacks in the most populous country in Africa.
On July 14, 2014, Boko Haram was responsible for the killing of at least 14 residents in Dille community, a predominantly Christian settlement in Borno State. It controlled large swathes of territory in three states last year before being pushed out of the major towns it controlled.
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A Reuters tally showed that more than 600 people had been killed in Nigeria alone since President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration at the end of May, when he promised to make getting rid of Boko Haram his top priority.
