Nigeria: Hundreds killed in Boko Haram attack

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Christianity Today :

Carey Lodge

08 January 2015

 

Boko Haram militants burnt down almost an entire town in northeast Nigeria on Wednesday, and initial reports suggest that hundreds of civilians were killed.

 

Insurgents attacked the town of Baga in Borno State just four days after overrunning the town's military base.

 

According to the BBC, much of the town was burnt down in the second attack and bodies littered the streets, with locals unable to bury their dead before they left. Senior government official, Musa Alhaji Bukar, told the BBC that residents who escaped the massacre said the population of Baga is now "virtually non-existent". It had previously been home to around 10,000 people.

 

Bukar added that Boko Haram was now essentially in control of Baga, along with 16 nearby towns. Borno State has been named the worst-affected by militant attacks. In May 2013 President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency there, as well as in Adamawa and Yobe states.

 

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One Upping Islamic State.

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Nigeria: 2,000 feared killed in Boko Haram's 'deadliest massacre'

Amnesty International calls the killings a disturbing and bloody escalation and a local defence group says its fighters have given up trying to count the bodies

Monica Mark

Jan. 9 2014

 

Hundreds of bodies too many to count remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the deadliest massacre in the history of Boko Haram.

 

Fighting continued on Friday around Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday.

 

Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted air strikes against militant targets, said a government spokesman.

 

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

 

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http://youtu.be/aJlTpFT2ZqU

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BBC: Nigeria estimates Baga deaths at 150

12 January 2015

 

Nigeria says the number of people who lost their lives in an assault by Boko Haram militants on the town of Baga last week was no more than 150.

The defence ministry said this figure included "many of the terrorists" who had attacked the town in Borno state and faced resistance by troops.

 

Local officials earlier estimated the number of deaths at as many as 2,000.

Nigeria has often been accused of underestimating casualty figures to downplay the threat of Boko Haram.

 

The ministry dismissed higher estimates for deaths at Baga, in north-east Nigeria, as "speculation and conjecture" and "exaggerated".

It said the army was taking "necessary actions" to restore law and order there, but gave few details about the operation to recapture the town from the Islamist insurgents.

 

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Meanwhile

 

BBC: Boko Haram crisis: Nigerian archbishop accuses West

Jan. 12 2015

 

The Catholic Archbishop of Jos, in central Nigeria, has accused the West of ignoring the threat of the militant Islamist group, Boko Haram.

 

Ignatius Kaigama said the world had to show more determination to halt the group's advance in Nigeria.

 

He said the international community had to show the same spirit and resolve it had done after the attacks in France.

 

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Nigerians are 'desperate' for intervention as Boko Haram steps up its attacks

January 12, 2015

 

With the world focused on France after the Charlie Hebdo attack, some pretty shocking news from Nigeria got relatively little attention.

 

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Meanwhile, Nigerian archbishop Ignatius Kaigama called on the international community for support. "I see the very positive response of the French government tackling this issue of religious violence after the killing of their citizens," he told the BBC World Service. "We need that spirit to be spread around, not just when it happens in Europe, [but] when it happens in Nigeria, in Niger, Cameroon and many poor countries."

 

"That's how many Nigerians feel at the moment," Abubakar says, echoing the Nigerian archbishop’s comments. But he says the intervention Nigerians are hoping for is exactly the kind of direct actions Western countries are unlikely to take.

 

"Not just surveillance and training, they want to see world powers — including the US — bring their troops into Nigeria and take on Boko Haram because the insurgents seem to have overwhelmed the Nigerian military," Abubakar says. “Nigerians now seem so desperate that anything that can be done to bring an end to this insurgency, they will support."

 

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Podcast at site

 

 

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Boko Haram crisis: Why it is hard to know the truth in Nigeria

Will Ross BBC News, Lagos

Jan. 13 2014

 

It is not easy to find out the truth in Nigeria.

 

The Baga killings last week are a case in point, with politicians and government officials offering vastly different information - from 150 dead to 2,000.

 

News of another attack by Islamist militants from Boko Haram often starts as a vague one-liner as was the case on 3 January: "Attack on Baga. Loud gunfire heard."

 

This first bit of information often comes via social media. The challenge now is to find out the details and there are plenty of obstacles in the way of getting to the truth.

 

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Nigeria's Boko Haram: Baga destruction 'shown in images'
15 January 2015

Satellite images of Nigerian towns attacked by Boko Haram show widespread destruction and suggest a high death toll, Amnesty International says.

The images show some 3,700 structures damaged or destroyed in Baga and Doron Baga this month, Amnesty said.

 

Nigeria's government has disputed reports that as many as 2,000 were killed, putting the toll at just 150.

Amnesty cited witnesses saying that militants had killed indiscriminately. It said the damage was "catastrophic".

 

There has been a surge in violence linked to Boko Haram. In the past week there have been several attacks, including by suspected child suicide bombers.

 

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