Boko Haram militants killed 86 people, including children, in their recent attack on villages in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday.
Advertisement
Not content yet, Boko Haram unleashed three female suicide bombers who after mingling with villagers blew themselves up after they were intercepted by troops, Anka said.
At least 85 people died this weekend when Boko Haram insurgents stormed and torched a village near the restive northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a state commissioner said Monday.
Alamin Bakura, who survived by hiding in a tree as several of his family members were killed or wounded, told the AP by telephone that he heard children screaming as they burned alive. Later the attackers retreated when the soldiers came with reinforcements.
The Lake Chad region, which borders Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, has been frequently targeted by Boko Haram and all four countries have formed a coalition along with Benin to fight the group. It also came as thousands of internally-displaced people were returning to camps.
In the January 27 attack, six suicide bombers attacked a crowded market in Chibok, killing at least 17 civilians and a soldier and wounding 30 others. Rabe Abubakar said the ongoing military offensive against the terrorists had been successful and alleged the latest attacks were “the result of the insurgents’ own desperation”.
The extremist group, based in northern Nigeria, killed 6,644 people in 2014, an increase of more than 300% from the previous year, according to the latest tally from the Global Terrorism Index.
The Nigerian government has repeatedly claimed the war against Boko Haram is well in hand, and has at times even claimed the group is already “defeated”. Eighty-six bodies were collected, said Mohammed Kanar, a coordinator with the local National Emergency Management Agency.
Founded in 2002, Boko Haram, which has created havoc in Africa’s most populous country, believes in a radical form of Islam which makes it “haram”, or against Islamic law, for Muslims to participate in any political or social activity associated with the Western world.
The new focus on more vulnerable targets picked up steam after President Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration that Boko Haram has been “technically” defeated, capable of no more than suicide bombings on soft targets.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, suspected militants in southern Nigeria have blown up oil pipelines operated by a subsidiary of Italy’s Eni, causing a “massive” oil spill, an industry official said Sunday.
