Wearing disguise, Boko Haram slaughters hundreds
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| FILE - This file image made available from Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2012, taken from video posted by Boko Haram sympathizers shows Imam Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the radical Islamist sect. Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 civilians in three villages in northeastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said on Thursday, June 5, 2014. |
MAIDUGURI,
Nigeria (AP) -- When men wearing military fatigues and carrying
weapons showed up in pickup trucks, villagers thought Nigerian soldiers
had finally come to protect them from Boko Haram.
But it was a disguise. The gunmen rounded up everyone in the village center and then started shooting.
Altogether,
Boko Haram militants slaughtered hundreds of people in three villages
in the far northeast corner of Nigeria, witnesses said Thursday,
describing the latest attack by the Islamic extremist group that drew
international attention for the kidnapping of more than 300 schoolgirls.
A
community leader who witnessed the killings on Monday said residents
had pleaded for the military to send soldiers to protect the area after
they heard that militants were about to attack.
The
militants arrived in Toyota HiLux pickup trucks - commonly used by the
military - and told the civilians they were soldiers and that they had
come "to protect you all," the same tactic used by the group when they
kidnapped the girls from a school in the town of Chibok on April 15.
"We
all thought they were the soldiers whom we earlier reported to that the
insurgents might attack us," said the community leader, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he feared for his life.
After
the militants forced everyone into the village centers, "they began to
shout `Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,' then they started to fire at the
people continuously for a very long time until all who had gathered were
dead," he said. Allahu akbar means God is great.
The
killings took place in the villages of Danjara, Agapalwa, and Antagara,
part of Gwoza district in Borno state. The community leader said he
fled to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, adding that some who escaped
the massacre crossed into the neighboring country of Cameroon while
others remain trapped in the mountainous region.
"They still see the gunmen going about attacking villages and hamlets by setting them on fire," he said.
He
said managed to survive because "I was going around to inform people
that the soldiers had come and they wanted to address us." As people
were fleeing, other gunmen lurked outside the villages on motorcycles
and mowed them down.
The slaughter was
confirmed by Mohammed Ali Ndume, a senator representing Borno whose
hometown is Gwoza, and by a top security official in Maiduguri who
insisted on anonymity because he isn't allowed to speak to the media.
It
took a few days for survivors to get word of the massacres to Maiduguri
because travel on the roads is extremely dangerous and phone
connections are poor or nonexistent.
In
another incident, gunmen killed 45 people in Bargari village on
Wednesday after gathering them in front of the village mosque, a witness
said.
"We were scared because we knew that they were Boko Haram members," said Abuwar Yale, a witness
who escaped the attack.
The
gunmen who arrived at 9:00 p.m. told the people they were there to
preach Islam and not kill and then asked them to go to the village
mosque. As soon as the men gathered there, the militants opened fire
chanting "Allahu akbar."
Yale and the others
who escaped hid in the bush the whole night and returned to the village
in the morning.
The houses in the village were set ablaze and the
livestock was stolen, he said.
In Borno state,
militants attacked Alagarno, a village near Chibok where the girls were
kidnapped, and destroyed it, according to Pogu Bitrus, a Chibok
community. People heard gunshots as the fighters were approaching and
were able to flee, he said.
Ndume said the military has assured the Borno state governor that it will dispatch soldiers immediately.
"It
is sad that we have to wait until now that people are being killed for
government to take action," he said.
"Soldiers of the Nigerian army have
been overstretched in both human and material capacity."
Calls
placed by The Associated Press to Defense Headquarters spokesman Chris
Olukolade's mobile phone didn't connect. An email sent to him seeking
comment wasn't answered. Calls to presidential spokesman Reuben Abati
also didn't connect, and he didn't immediately respond to an email
seeking comment.
Nigeria's military has
insisted that a big influx of troops and a year-old state of emergency
in Borno and two other states have the insurgents on the run. But
soldiers have told the AP that they are outgunned and outnumbered by the
insurgents, don't have bullet-proof vests, are not properly paid and
have to forage for food.
Boko Haram, which
wants to establish Islamic state in Nigeria, has been taking over
villages in the northeast, killing and terrorizing civilians and
political leaders. Thousands of people have been killed in the
five-year-old insurgency, more than 2,000 so far just this year, and an
estimated 750,000 Nigerians have been driven from their homes.
The
Gwoza district, where Monday's attack took place, is a regional
political center whose emir was killed last week in a Boko Haram ambush
on his convoy. Emirs are religious and traditional rulers who have been
targeted for speaking out against Boko Haram's extremism.
Borno
Gov. Kashim Shettima traveled on Saturday to Gwoza to pay his respects
to the slain emir and was quoted in a local media report as saying it
was a terrifying 85-mile (135 kilometer) ride. A Nigerian journalist in
the convoy escorted by 150 soldiers counted at least 16 deserted towns
and villages along the way.
In London, British
officials announced that they will host a meeting on June 12 to discuss
how to improve regional coordination in tackling Boko Haram and
terrorism. The session will be attended by Nigerian Foreign Minister
Aminu Bashir Wali as well as envoys from Nigeria's neighbors Benin,
Chad, Cameroon and Niger, plus the U.S., France, Canada and the European
Union.
