Reports from Nigeria’s North-East region indicates that despite claims by President Goodluck Jonathan that the media is fueling concocted stories of increased insurgency activities, Boko Haram continues to maim and kill with impunity.
The head of the fish traders association on Sunday said that the militants killed 48 fish vendors in a Nigerian village close to the border with Chad.
The insurgents set up a barricade at Dogon Fili, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Doron Baga, and stopped a convoy of fish vendors around midday, slaughtering some of them and drowning others in the lake.
“Scores of Boko Haram fighters blocked a route linking Nigeria with Chad near the fishing village of Doron Baga on the shores of Lake Chad on Thursday and killed a group of 48 fish traders on their way to Chad to buy fish,” Abubakar Gamandi said, adding that the victims were killed without guns.
“The attackers killed their victims silently without the use of the gun to avoid attracting attention from the multi-national troops,” Gamandi noted.
“The Boko Haram gunmen slit the throats of some of the men and tied the hands and legs of the others before throwing them into the lake to drown,” Gamandi told AFP by telephone from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
A day earlier, between 45 and 48 people were killed in what was being interpreted to be a Boko Haram reprisal attack on the village of Azara Kuya, also in Borno state.
The militants stormed the village in Wednesday’s attack to avenge four of their members who had wandered into the market but were identified and killed by soldiers in a gun fight, according to military sources.
The attack on Azaya Kura village occurred on a busy market day, Shettima Lawan, chairman of Mafa district council said by telephone.
“They slaughtered 45 people. They’ve been buried,” Lawan said. A resident of the village, who had escaped to Maiduguri, Mohammed bakura said, Boko Haram tied the hands of their victims behind their backs and slit their throats like animals.