Islamist insurgency Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack on Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri Wednesday night that killed at least 14 people, the first major assault in 18 months on a key stronghold against the militants. The raid took place six months after Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram had “technically” been … Read more
Farmers and fishermen displaced by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria want to return home, saying it will help ease chronic food shortages for the remote region’s starving millions. Subsistence agriculture is a lifeline in the northeast but the eight-year Islamist insurgency has devastated activities, causing a desperate lack of food and sky-high prices. Many … Read more
Eleven people were killed when Boko Haram gunmen and suicide bombers launched a rare combined attack inside the strategic northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, police said on Thursday. Borno state police commissioner Damian Chukwu said one civilian was killed as locals in the Jiddari Polo area of the city fled, while 10 were killed nearby … Read more
Suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked the city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Wednesday, the Islamist militant group’s most serious assault on the regional capital in a year and a half. The raid comes six months President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram had “technically” been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many jihadists … Read more
Around 30 Cameroonian soldiers fighting the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram were arrested after a demonstration to demand the payment of bonuses and some leave, the defence ministry said Monday. The soldiers on Sunday “set about stopping traffic with barricades on national route number one,” the ministry said in a statement broadcast on state radio. … Read more
Aid agencies warn that humanitarian efforts against hunger in northeastern Nigeria are dangerously underfunded and some communities remain cut off from aid and their farms as the military continues to battle Boko Haram. Communities in northeastern Nigeria are facing the dual threats of hunger and the terrorist group known as Boko Haram. The zone has … Read more
Suspected Boko Haram jihadists killed six people fighting alongside the military in two separate incidents in northeast Nigeria, vigilantes told AFP Sunday. Four of the slain vigilantes were hunting in the bush near a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the city of Maiduguri when they were seized in a daytime attack. … Read more
After a night on the streets, the pack of young boys move into Maiduguri’s abandoned amusement park in the early morning to play on the broken-down rides. Shoeless and wearing ragged clothes, they sprint to the merry-go-round, its chipped candy-coloured paint bleached by the scorching sun. The horses are motionless but the boys laugh like … Read more
Boko Haram jihadists have killed six farmers who were working on their land near the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, civilian militia members and locals told AFP on Monday. Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a group preparing fields for the rainy season outside the village of Amrawa, 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the Borno State capital, … Read more
She said she was abducted with her father in Gwoza, Borno state, in 2013 A 14-year-old girl who surrendered while on a suicide bombing attack at a military base in Nigeria’s northern-state of Maiduguri has said that she was chosen for the mission because she had refused to marry a militant from Boko Haram, Nigeria’s … Read more
Some Boko Haram girls are said to have refused to be released by their abductors A recent Boko Haram video has confirmed that some of the girls abducted from their school in Borno preferred to stay with the group than to be reunited with their families. A video purportedly sent to Ahmed Salkida – a … Read more
Boko Haram released a video late on Friday claiming to show the Chibok school girls who refused to be rescued as part of a recent swap deal with the Nigerian government. In the three-minute video, a woman who claims to be Maida Yakubu, one of the school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014, … Read more
Boko Haram late on Friday released a video claiming to show the Chibok schoolgirls who refused to be rescued as part of a recent swap deal with the Nigerian government. In the three-minute video, a woman who claims to be Maida Yakubu, one of the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014, is seen … Read more
Military pressure, in-fighting within Boko Haram and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s health combined to secure the release of 82 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls, sources said Monday. The latest batch of the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted in April 2014 were freed Saturday in a prisoner swap for three senior jihadist commanders, all of them Chadian nationals. … Read more
The United Nations on Monday welcomed the release of 82 Nigerian schoolgirls after years of Boko Haram captivity and appealed to their families and communities not to ostracize them. The teenage girls kidnapped in 2014 from a school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, were freed on Saturday after a prisoner swap agreed with the Islamist group. … Read more
Scores of Nigerian schoolgirls who were among more than 200 kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 have been released, multiple sources told AFP on Saturday, with unconfirmed reports that at least 80 have been freed. “I can confirm they have been released,” said a senior government minister, who asked not to be identified, adding that … Read more
Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict. The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were “actively planning” to seize foreign workers in the Bama … Read more
Britain and the United States on Friday said Boko Haram was preparing to kidnap foreigners in remote northeast Nigeria, which is in the grip of a food crisis caused by the conflict. The Foreign Office in London said it had received reports the Islamist militants were “actively planning” to seize foreign workers in the Bama … Read more
Nine Chadian soldiers were killed in a Boko Haram attack on an army post in the Lake Chad region on Friday, local and security sources told AFP. Some 40 Boko Haram jihadists were also killed as the army responded to the attack on the Kaiga post, sources said on condition of anonymity. A military official … Read more
The Nigerianarmy calls it “New Banki City”, an optimistic name conjuring up visions of modern housing. The reality is an overcrowded camp for 32,000 desperate people made homeless by Boko Haram. In this ravaged corner of northeast Nigeria, the Islamists frequently launch attacks on military convoys, unleash suicide bombers and litter the surrounding roads and … Read more