Nigeria: Boko Haram prisoners plead for help

[Anthea]

Farm workers killed in attack

More than 43 people have been killed in what the Nigerian president has described as an "insane" attack in north-east Nigeria on Saturday

The attackers tied up agricultural labourers working in rice fields and slit their throats near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

This is one of the worst attacks in recent months in a region where the Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa insurgent groups are active.

"I condemn the killing of our hard-working farmers by terrorists in Borno state. The entire country is hurt by these senseless killings. My thoughts are with their families in this time of grief.

May their souls rest in peace," said President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Buhari also described "the terrorist killings as insane", according to his spokesman Garba Shehu.

President @MBuhari has expressed grief over the killing of farmers on rice fields at Zabarmari, in Jere Local Government of Borno State, describing the terrorist killings as insane.
— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) November 28, 2020

"We have recovered 43 dead bodies, all of them slaughtered, along with six others with serious injuries," a local militiaman who helped the survivors told the AFP news agency.

More bodies were reportedly found later - but the exact number of the victims was not immediately known.

Reports also say about 15 women were kidnapped.

The victims were labourers from Sokoto state in north-western Nigeria, roughly 1,000 km (600 miles) away, who had travelled to the north-east to find work, another militiaman told AFP.

The governor of Borno state (CR in the background, with yellow hat and white and yellow robe) attended the victims' funerals on Sundayimage copyrightBorno state government
image captionThe victims were buried on Sunday, with the state's governor in attendance

The governor of Borno state, Babagana Zulum, attended the victims' funerals on Sunday.

"It is disheartening that more than 40 citizens were slaughtered while they were working in their farmlands," he told journalists.

"Our people are in very difficult situations, they are in two different extreme conditions: in one side, [if] they stay at home, they may be killed by hunger and starvation; on the other, they go out to their farmlands and risk getting killed by the insurgents. This is very sad."

He called on the federal government to recruit more soldiers and members of other security forces to protect farmers in the region.

The farmers "were attacked because they had on Friday disarmed and arrested a Boko Haram gunman who had been tormenting them", a member of the local parliament, Ahmed Satomi, told newspaper Premium Times.

Correspondents say farmers have previously been attacked by militants of the Islamist group Boko Haram, who suspect them of passing on information to the military.

Last month, Boko Haram fighters killed 22 farmers working on irrigation fields in two separate incidents.

On Sunday, six soldiers were reportedly killed in a jihadist ambush near the town of Baga in Borno State, says the BBC's Chris Ewokor, in Abuja.

The soldiers were on their way to the area to boost security at a food distribution depot for people displaced by the conflict.

Despite regional efforts to end Boko Haram's campaign of violence, the group has stepped up its attacks in recent months.

The Nigerian government has repeatedly claimed that the Islamist militant groups have been technically defeated, correspondents say.

President Buhari, who five years ago asserted that Boko Haram had been defeated, said he had given all the support needed to the armed forces to protect Nigeria's population.

But the Nigerian military has been unable to quell the insurgency affecting the region, in which tens of thousands have been killed or abducted.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55120638

[Anthea]

Hundreds missing in Nigeria school attack

Hundreds of students are feared missing after gunmen raided a secondary school in north-western Nigeria

The attackers arrived on motorbikes and started shooting into the air, causing people to flee, witnesses said.

They targeted the Government Science Secondary School - where more than 800 students are said to reside - in Katsina state on Friday evening.

On Saturday, the military said it had located the gunmen's hideout in a forest and exchanged gunfire with them.

The outcome was unclear but officials said there were no reports of students being injured.

Meanwhile, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack and ordered the school to carry out a full audit of students to find out how many are missing

Parents who dashed to the school to take their children home were also asked to notify the school authorities.

Residents living near the all-boys boarding school in the Kankara area told the BBC they heard gunfire at about 23:00 (22:00 GMT) on Friday, and that the attack lasted for more than an hour.

Security personnel at the school managed to repel some of the attackers before police reinforcements arrived, officials said.

In a statement on Saturday, police said that during an exchange of fire, some of the gunmen were forced to retreat. Students were able to scale the fence of the school and run to safety, they said.

About 200 students who had fled - and were initially deemed missing - later returned. However, witnesses said they saw a number of students being taken away by the gunmen.

One police officer was taken to hospital after being shot and wounded, police said.

Several local residents on Saturday said they had joined the police in searching for the students who remained missing, while many parents said they had withdrawn their children from the school.

"The school is deserted, all the students have vacated," one witness, Nura Abdullahi, told AFP news agency.

"Some of the students who escaped returned to the town this morning, but others took a bus home," he added.

The governor of Katsina, Aminu Bello Massari, has ordered the immediate closure of all boarding schools in the state.

Katsina is the home state of President Buhari, who is currently there for a week-long private visit.

"I strongly condemn the cowardly bandits' attack on innocent children at the Science School, Kankara," he said in a statement. "Our prayers are with the families of the students, the school authorities and the injured."

The attack on Friday came two days after the kidnapping of a village leader and 20 others in another part of the state.

In 2014, more than 270 girls were kidnapped by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram from a school in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Chibok.

No group has yet said it carried out the raid on the school in Katsina, which is far from Boko Haram's usual area of operation in the north-east.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55288114

[Anthea]

Schoolboys pleading for help

Boko Haram have released footage of dozens of the more than 300 schoolboys it kidnapped last week in Nigeria

A distraught teenager, surrounded by dozens of younger boys, speaks in English and Hausa saying: 'We have been caught by the gang of Abu Shekau.'

His voice starts to falter as he says: 'Please, please, we need your assistance,' while the other children shout out to the camera before the recording ends.

Shekau's jihadists kidnapped around 330 children from the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in northwestern Katsina state on Friday.

Boko Haram release video of kidnapped Nigerian schoolboys

Dozens of younger boys are seen standing in a copse of trees and bushes behind the teenager singled out Boko Haram to deliver the message. Around 330 boys are believed to still be missing after Friday's kidnapping

Boko Haram terror chief Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday - he released a further audio clip today as they released footage of the boys

Today's video was released with a recording made by the group's elusive leader Shekau. It reiterated Boko Haram's claim of responsibility.

'I earlier released an audio confirming our people did Allah's work, but people denied it,' the voice said. 'Here are my men, and your children have spoken.'

Shekau, who was behind the 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, released an audio clip earlier this week explaining why the boys had been kidnapped.

He said Boko Haram sought 'to promote Islam and discourage un-Islamic practices as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his holy Prophet.'

More than 100 gunmen wielding AK-47s and riding motorcycles stormed the rural school north of Kankara town, forcing pupils to flee and hide in the surrounding bush.

Some were able to escape, but many were captured, split into groups and taken away, residents said.

The government has not immediately reacted to Boko Haram's claims today, nor confirmed the exact number of children missing.

Two accounts by different officials have put the number of schoolboys at 320 or 333.

One of those who escaped, 17-year-old Usama Aminu said that they were forced to walk through the night by the militants before they let them sit down to rest.

Nigeria launched a rescue operation in which the police, air force and army tracked the kidnappers to their hideout in the Zango/Paula forest.

'When the bandits heard the sound of the helicopter hovering above they asked us to lay down under the large trees with our face to the ground,' Aminu said.

During their hike, Aminu said they met young boys in their teens, armed with guns. He said some were younger than him.

Aminu, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, held onto the shoulders of two freinds during the trek 'as the bandits continued to flog people from the back so that they can move faster.'

Usama Aminu, 17, a kidnapped student of Government Science Secondary School who escaped from bandits, left, and his father Aminu Male, sit together during an interview with Associated Press in Kankara, Nigeria, Wednesday

Boko Haram, and a splinter group the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), are waging an insurgency in Nigeria northeast and are thought to have only a minor presence in the northwest. However, Tuesday's claim of responsibility marks a major turning point - suggesting that the Islamists have made major inroads into the northwest

After dark, the boy decided to recite passages from the Quran. It was then that he managed to slip away unnoticed into the night and hide in a mosque.

A local resident eventually found him coughing and offered him a change of clothes so that he could leave his school uniform behind, he said.

He returned home at around 11pm on Sunday.

His father, Aminu Ma'le, said he was relieved but still worried for the others. 'I cannot celebrate alone because of the other boys still missing,' said the father.

Katsina State governor Aminu Bello Masari said that 17 boys have been rescued since the attack, including 15 by the military, another by police and one boy found roaming in the forest who was brought in by residents. Aminu was among those boys.

Protesters marched in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday under a banner reading #BringBackOurBoys as pressure mounted on the government to secure their release.

Parents fear time is running out to bring the boys home. Boko Haram has a history of turning captives into jihadist fighters.

Dozens of people attended a march through the city of Katsina in response to The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), a civil society body that focuses on the welfare of northern Nigerians. Some chanted 'Save northern Nigeria'.

The hashtag #BringBackOurBoys has been trending on Twitter in recent days and echoes a campaign that was launched to bring home the girls abducted in 2014.

'Northern Nigeria has been abandoned at the mercy of vicious insurgents, bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, rapists and an assortment of hardened criminals,' said Balarabe Ruffin, CNG's national coordinator.

Supporters of the 'Coalition of Northern Groups' (CNG) rally to urge authorities to rescue hundreds of abducted schoolboys, in northwestern state of Katsina, Nigeria, today

He said there was a 'huge vacuum in the political will and capacity of government to challenge' the kidnappers.

Late on Wednesday, Katsina state Governor Aminu Bello Masari told the BBC Hausa service the missing boys were in the forests of neighbouring Zamfara state.

An aide to Masari said soldiers and intelligence officers had been combing the Rugu forest, which stretches across Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger states, in search of the boys.

Regional security experts say the boys could be taken over the nearby border into Niger, which would make finding them harder.

For more than a decade, Boko Haram has engaged in a bloody campaign to introduce strict Islamic rule in Nigeria's north.

Thousands have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced by the violence

Boko Haram has been mainly active in northeast Nigeria, but with the abductions from the school in Katsina state, there is worry the insurgency is expanding to the northwest.

The abductions of the schoolboys is a frightening reminder of Boko Haram's previous attacks on schools. In February 2014, 59 boys were killed when the jihadists attacked the Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State.

In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from a government boarding school in Chibok in northeastern Borno State. About 100 of those girls are still missing.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... geria.html