SUSPECTED BOKO HARAM FIGHTERS KILL 65 IN ATTACK ON FUNERAL IN NIGERIA
DAKAR, Senegal —
Villagers were walking home from a funeral in northeast Nigeria this weekend
when gunmen on motorbikes surrounded them in a graveyard and opened fire. The
attack bearing the hallmarks of terrorist group Boko Haram left at least 65
people dead, authorities said Monday, as residents urged the military to ramp
up protection in a region gripped by extremist violence.
The latest round of
bloodshed comes almost exactly 10 years after Nigerian forces tangled with
extremists at a mosque in Borno state, a battle that killed hundreds and is
considered the beginning of Boko Haram’s uprising. Militants indiscriminately
shot at mourners Saturday outside a village just north of Maiduguri, Borno’s
state capital, said Abba Dogo, assistant to the local government chairman. Then
they turned their weapons on neighbors who had heard the commotion and rushed over
to help. “Men, women and children,” he said.
Boko Haram, an
extremist group that has killed 27,000 in 10 years. Boko Haram is one of
several extremist groups that aims to build an Islamist state in the region.
The name of the organization is Hausa for “Western education is taboo.” Over
the past decade, the group has killed approximately 27,000 people and forced an
estimated 2 million more from their homes in its quest to wipe out secular rule
and impose Sharia law.
Boko Haram’s longtime
leader, Abubakar Shekau, envisions a world with all traces of Western influence
and Christianity stamped out. Women must cover themselves and skip schooling or
face lashings, among other forms of corporal punishment. Drinking, soccer, pop
music — revelry outside of prayer — are considered evil.
Though the Nigerian
government and international partners have beaten back Boko Haram’s footprint
in recent years, the group continues to carry out deadly attacks from its
stronghold in the country’s northeast. Shekau’s fighters are known for
strapping women and children in particular with bombs and sending them into
crowds.
The group grabbed
global notoriety in 2014 after kidnapping 276 schoolgirls from the town of
Chibok in Borno state. The abductions inspired the #BringBackOurGirls campaign
backed by then-first lady Michelle Obama and other celebrities. (More than 100
are still missing.) How Saturday's funeral turned into a massacre. Hassan
Ahmadu, 38, said he was in a cemetery just before noon for the funeral of a
relative when strangers on motorbikes approached. “My heart started skipping a
beat,” he said, “and I told an elderly person next to me that I am not
comfortable with those people coming to us.”
Before they could
move, he said, the men started spraying bullets into the crowd. “I was shot on
my right thigh and shoulders and left for dead,” he said from his hospital bed
in Maiduguri. Ahmadu lost five family members in the attack: his grandfather,
uncle, half brother and two cousins. He felt lucky to be alive, he said,
because the gunmen started checking the bodies to make sure people were dead. “They
stopped and left before reaching my place,” he said.
Muhammed Bulama, the
local government chairman, told reporters the attack appeared to be an act of
retaliation. Two weeks ago, he said, villagers in the area fought off suspected
members of Boko Haram who they said routinely steal their cows and produce.
They killed 11 in the violence, Bulama said.
Modu Kanumbu, a
self-described vigilante, was at home Saturday in a nearby village when he said
people knocked on his door, pleading for help. Kanumbu said he picked up his
double-barreled shotgun and phoned soldiers in the area for backup.Then they
hurried toward the graveyard and saw a group of young girls running toward
them. The girls pointed the way.
“We headed there only
to find bodies lying everywhere,” Kanumbu said in an interview. “Those who
could talk urged us to go after Boko Haram, saying they were fleeing.” Kanumbu
and said that he and the soldiers followed the terrorists’ trail but that it
was too late.
HAS NIGERIA
REALLY DEFEATED BOKO HARAM?
President Buhari
condemned the massacre in a Sunday statement, ordering the nation’s air force
to launch air patrols as the army tracked down the attackers on the ground. A
spokesman for the Nigerian military did not immediately respond to requests
for comment on the military’s response to the funeral attack.
Boko Haram has not
claimed responsibility for the attack, but it carried the militant group’s
signature. The homegrown Islamist insurgency in Africa’s most populous nation
has displaced millions. Analysts say the protracted unrest threatens to
destabilize one of the continent’s top economies, spill into neighboring
countries and clear the way for terrorist training grounds across West Africa.
Over the years,
Nigerian leaders have claimed victory over Boko Haram, with President Muhammadu
Buhari once labeling them “technically defeated.” But attacks have continued in
Borno, where teenage suicide bombers, suspected to have been sent by the
terrorists, killed at least 30 in June. And some members have pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State, breaking away from Boko Haram to target
largely military personnel over civilians. Alfa reported from Maiduguri,
Nigeria. Isaac Abrak in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.
Source: The Washington
Post – 29 July 2019
By: Danielle Paquette and Ismail Alfa
By: Danielle Paquette and Ismail Alfa
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