Nigeria: More than 100 dead in alleged Boko Haram attack on village

According to UN data, more than 100 people were killed in an attack on a village in Nigeria. “At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly murdered and many more injured,” said the UN aid coordinator for Nigeria, Edward Kallon.

Armed men on motorcycles attacked men and women in Koshobe and surrounding areas in Borno state on Saturday who were in attendance at the harvest. The Islamist group Boko Haram is held responsible for the attack.

“The incident is the most violent direct attack on innocent civilians this year,” said Kallon. “I demand that the perpetrators of this heinous and senseless act be brought to justice.”

The Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari also condemned the attack near the regional capital Maiduguri. “The whole country has been wounded by these senseless killings,” he said. The act occurred on the day of the first regional elections in Borno since 2009. Because of the continuing violence by Islamist militias, the election had been postponed again and again.

Attacks on farmers, woodworkers, ranchers and fishermen

According to the militia leader Babakura Kolo, whose militia is fighting against Boko Haram, the victims were attacked while they were working in rice fields in the village of Koshobe. Then they are said to have been tied up. Then their throats were cut. The attack was “without a doubt” carried out by fighters from the Boko Haram militia, said Kolo. The Islamists killed a total of 22 farm workers in two attacks near Maiduguri in October.

Boko Haram and Iswap, the West African branch of the jihadist militia IS, had recently increasingly attacked farmers, woodworkers, cattle farmers and fishermen because they allegedly worked as informants for the army.

In 2016, Iswap split from the Boko Haram militia, which has been violently fighting for an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria since 2009. The attacks by the militias and their fighting with the army killed around 36,000 people in recent years, and two million more fled.