2, 000 likely killed in Nigeria’s deadliest B’Haram attack – AI

The Amnesty International has described the January 3 attack on Baga community in Borno State as the deadliest in the history of Boko Haram’s over five-year reign of terror in the North-East of Nigeria, saying about 2,000 people may have been killed in the incident.

AI, in a statement on Friday, said it had reports of the town being razed to the ground, leaving around 2,000 people dead in the process.

A researcher for Amnesty International in Nigeria, Daniel Eyre, said, “The attack on Baga and surrounding towns looks as if it could be Boko Haram’s deadliest act in a catalogue of increasingly heinous attacks carried out by the group.

“If reports that the town was largely razed to the ground and that hundreds or even as many as two thousand civilians were killed are true, this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram’s ongoing onslaught against the civilian population.”

“We are currently working to find out more details of what happened during the attack on Baga and the surrounding area. This attack reiterates the urgent need for Boko Haram to stop the senseless killing of civilians and for the Nigerian government to take measures to protect a population who live in constant fear of such attacks,” Eyre added.

Since 2009 when the sect began its deadly campaign, targeting civilians and military personnel through raids and bomb attacks, scores of lives have been lost. According to United States-based Council on Foreign Relations, more than 10,000 were killed by the group last year alone, many of them children and old people.

Meanwhile, shooting and heavy artillery fire were heard on the outskirts of Damaturu on Friday, Reuters reported. No further details were given as of the time of filing this report.

It will be recalled that suspected Boko Haram militants raided Damaturu, Yobe State, 130km from Maiduguri, Borno State in early December last year.

The United Nations refugee agency on Friday reported that some 7,300 Nigerian refugees had arrived in western Chad in the past 10 days, fleeing attacks by insurgents on Baga town and surrounding villages in North-East Nigeria.

The UNHCR spokesperson, Adrian Edwards, said UNHCR teams in Chad were at the border and seeking more information on the new arrivals and their needs.

The attack this week on Baga left hundreds of people dead, according to media reports, and forced most of its surviving inhabitants to flee.

The newly arrived refugees in Chad are staying with local communities in villages around 450 kilometres north-west of the capital, N’Djamena. The Chadian government has requested the assistance of aid agencies to help the refugees.