Boko Haram razed at least 16 towns and villages in a renewed
assault
after capturing a key military base in restive northeast Nigeria at the
weekend, local officials said on Thursday.
Heavy casualties were
feared in the attacks on Wednesday in the remote north of Borno state,
according to local sources, but there was no independent corroboration
of the figures cited.
Musa Bukar, head of the Kukawa local
government area, said: “They (Boko Haram) burnt to the ground all the 16
towns and villages, including Baga, Doron-Baga, Mile 4, Mile 3, Kauyen
Kuros and Bunduram.”
Abubakar Gamandi, head of Borno’s fish
traders union and a Baga native, also confirmed the attacks, adding that
hundreds of people who fled were trapped on islands on Lake Chad.
News
of the latest attacks came as Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan,
who has been criticised for his inability to end the insurgency,
formally launched his re-election campaign.
Nigeria’s military —
West Africa’s largest — has come under scrutiny for its inability to
fight the militants after reports of a lack of adequate weaponry and
even bullets.
Boko Haram, in contrast, has been seen with advanced
weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and
even a tank.
Jonathan’s opponent at next month’s elections, former
military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, has blamed government corruption for
the lack of firepower.
But the head of state appeared to blame his
predecessors for not investing enough in defence in a speech at a rally
in Lagos on Thursday.
– Control of border –
Boko Haram
fighters on Saturday captured Baga and the headquarters of the
Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which is made of troops from
Nigeria, Niger and Chad.
Security analysts this week said that
Baga was of strategic importance for Boko Haram, as it was thought to be
the last town in northern Borno under federal government control.
The
militants, who have seized more than two dozen towns in northeast
Nigeria in the last six months, now control all three of Borno’s borders
with Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Bukar said the Islamists used
petrol bombs and explosives to destroy Baga, a key fishing and
commercial hub, and surrounding villages on the shores of Lake Chad.
“We
have over 20,000 people displaced from Baga and surrounding villages in
a camp in Maiduguri and we are making arrangements to convey another
10,000 from Monguno where they ran to,” he added.
Gamandi said a
head count would have to be conducted to determine the number of dead
and missing but that could pose difficulties as residents fled both
towards Maiduguri and also into Chad.
Some 560 villagers have been stranded on an island on Lake Chad since Saturday without food, he added.
“They told me that some of them are dying from lack of food, cold and malaria on the mosquito-infested island,” he said.
“I
was in constant touch with them until this morning when the phone they
were using went off which I assume was due to dead battery.”
Source:PM News
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