Children stand near the scene of an explosion in a mobile phone market in Potiskum, Nigeria
Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremist group, is increasing the ferocity and tempo of its attacks, destabilizing Africa’s most populous nation as it prepares for elections.
Girls as young as 10 are being used as suicide bombers. There have been daring attacks on military barracks in Nigeria and Cameroon. The group, which wants to impose Shariah across the country and is increasing its territory under a self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate, recently massacred hundreds of civilians, with death toll estimates ranging up to 2,000.
President Goodluck Jonathan, the front-runner in the Feb. 14 presidential and legislative elections, launched his campaign last week with no reference to the seizure of a key military base at Baga, near the border of Cameroon and Chad. As soldiers fled the base on Jan. 3, Boko Haram went on a killing spree, reportedly drowning many in Lake Chad. Amnesty International called it the deadliest massacre in Boko Haram’s 5-year insurgency.
Nigeria’s president was among leaders who condemned last week’s attack by Islamic extremists on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, yet his response to the slaughter of civilians by militants in his own country has been muted.
Some commentators criticized Jonathan’s reticence about the violence in Nigeria’s Baga town, and the lack of a broader international outcry on par with the reaction to the attacks in France. The slogan “I am Baga” — a play on “I am Charlie,” the expression of solidarity with the targeted French weekly — is now circulating on social media.
The global sympathy and the defiant rally in Paris that drew foreign leaders after the assaults that killed 17 people overshadowed the killing of hundreds and perhaps as many as 2,000 people in Baga, a northeastern town near Chad.
Jonathan, who has been touting his domestic record ahead of a re-election bid next month, was quick to express solidarity with France.
“The President believes that the cowardly and ignoble attack by violent extremists is a monstrous assault on the right to freedom of expression,” said a statement by his office the day after the attacks in France.
It did not release a similarly forceful statement about Baga. The attack there started on Jan. 3 and was another bloody marker in a murky, grinding conflict in which information is often scarce, the insurgency is seen by many as a local problem and violence is routine.
The United Nations, the United States and other countries have condemned the violence by Islamic extremist group Boko Haram, and international aid groups are mobilizing to help survivors. Christopher Torchia, MDT/, AP
amnesty says satellite images show nigerian destruction
Satellite images show widespread destruction in two Nigerian towns that were recently attacked by Islamic extremists, an international human rights group said Wednesday.
Amnesty International said it would release early yesterday detailed images of Baga and Doron Baga, taken before and after the attack earlier this month, that show more than 3,700 structures were damaged or completely destroyed.
The images were taken Jan. 2 and Jan. 7, Amnesty International said. Boko Haram fighters seized a military base in Baga on Jan. 3 and, according to witnesses, killed hundreds civilians in the ensuing days.
Amnesty International said interviews with witnesses as well as local government officials and human rights activists suggest hundreds of civilians were shot; last week, the human rights group noted reports of as many as 2,000 dead. The Nigerian military has cited a figure of 150 dead, including slain militants.
Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram group drew international condemnation when its fighters kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a boarding school in northeast Chibok town last year. Dozens escaped but 219 remain missing.
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