BAUCHI, Nigeria
(AP) -- Residents of a Nigerian town attacked by Boko Haram
criticized security forces for failing to protect them despite warnings
that the Islamic militants were nearby. At least 50 bodies have been
recovered, many horribly burned, in the town.
The
attack on Gamboru, in remote northeastern Nigeria near the border with
Cameroon, is part of the Islamic militants' campaign of terror that
included the kidnapping of teenaged girls from a school, 276 of whom
remain missing and believed held by Boko Haram in the vast Sambisa
Forest in northeastern Nigeria.
The death toll
from the Monday afternoon attack in Gamboru was initially reported by a
senator to be as many as 300, but a security official said it is more
likely to be around 100. Some Gamboru residents said bodies were
recovered from the debris of burned shops around the town's main market,
which was the focus of the attack.
The bodies
were found after the market reopened on Wednesday as health workers,
volunteers and traders searched for missing people, said Gamboru
resident Abuwar Masta. He said most of the bodies were burned beyond
recognition. Some of the victims were traders from Chad and Cameroon, he
said.
"It seems they hid in the shops in
order not (to) be killed while fleeing," Masta said Wednesday.
"Unfortunately, several explosives were thrown into the market."
Masta
and other traders said that some villagers had warned the security
forces of an impending attack after insurgents were seen camping in the
bush near Gamboru.
The kidnapping of the
schoolgirls on April 15 in the town of Chibok have sparked accusations
that the Nigerian government is not doing enough to stop the militants.
Boko Haram has killed more than 1,500 people so far this year as part of
their campaing to impose Islamic law on Africa's most populous nation,
which has 170 million people equally divided between Christian and
Muslim.
Outrage over the missing girls and the
government's failure to rescue them brought angry Nigerian protesters
into the streets this week, an embarrassment for the government of
President Goodluck Jonathan which had hoped to showcase the country's
emergence as Africa's largest economy as it hosted the Africa meeting of
the World Economic Forum, the continent's version of Davos. That
meeting is ongoing in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, which also has been
the scene recently of two bomb blasts blamed on Boko Haram.
Nigeria's
military said in a statement Thursday that the armed forces are
"focused on the task of rescuing the abducted girls and that the war on
Boko Haram "will be effectively prosecuted."
On
Thursday the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou
Bensouda, said acts such as the mass abduction of girls "shock the
conscience of humanity" and could constitute crimes that fall within the
jurisdiction of The Hague-based court.
"No
stone should be left unturned to bring those responsible for such
atrocious acts to justice either in Nigeria or at the ICC," she said in a
statement.
The homegrown terror group was
largely contained to the northern part of Nigeria before expanding its
reach with the help of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist
network's affiliate in West Africa, which trained Boko Haram fighters in
its camps in southern Somalia, beginning in 2010.
Although
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people - Christians as well as
Muslims - over the years in a campaign of bombings and massacres, the
group's mass abduction of schoolgirls appears to have galvanized global
attention and prompted offers of security assistance from foreign
countries to help rescue the girls.
The U.S. announced on Tuesday it was sending personnel and equipment to help Nigerian security forces.
Jonathan
confirmed that he has accepted the American assistance, which the
Pentagon said Wednesday will include communications, logistics and
intelligence planning, but will not include any military operations.
Britain and China said Nigeria had accepted their offers of help, and
France said it was sending in a "specialized team" to help with search
and rescue of the girls.
The office of the
United Nations spokesman in New York said Jonathan on Thursday accepted
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's offer to send a high-level representative to
Nigeria to discuss how the U.N. can support efforts to tackle the
country's "internal challenges."
