Jihadists in the restive north-east of Nigeria have taken hundreds of people hostage who have only recently returned home from refugee camps after local government officials claimed their city was safe.
More than 20 militant trucks were killed Tuesday night in the town of Kukawa, Borno state. The jihadists imprisoned hundreds of fleeing residents and attacked a nearby military base that protected the city.
1,200 residents had just returned to Kukawa in early August, from refugee camps 180 km (120 miles) south of the state capital, said Maiduguri, a local chief who escaped the attack.
The victims had returned, hoping to start their lives anew and cultivate their agricultural land “only to end up in the hands of the insurgents,” he said.
“We do not know what they would do to them, but I hope they do not harm them,” said the chief, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The army and government of Nigeria have not released any details about the victims or released details about the attack which was thought to have been carried out by militants from the Islamic State West African province, an off-shooter from Boko Haram who has been in a riot since celebrated in the northeast of Nigeria 2009.
1,200 refugees who had spent nearly two years in camps were returned to Kukawa on August 2 by military convoys, at the behest of local authorities.
In the past two years, government officials have sought to return nearly 2 million internally displaced people to their cities. Yet many refugees, despite persistent squalide, have too many camps resisting return. Aid groups have expressed widespread concern that much of the region, ‘liberated’ by security forces, remains insecure.
Nigerian authorities have repeatedly claimed to have defeated and degraded groups of jihadists, yet they remain in the region entirely and peace remains a remote perspective. The terror of jihadist groups has diminished from its height in 2014 as an occupying power in several cities across the Chad region.
But in recent years, devastating attacks on the army have increased, and humanitarian workers, security forces, and civilians have also become increasingly targeted. More than a million people live in cities that are considered inaccessible and cut off from aid groups, in areas where jihadists roam free.
Nigerian security forces fighting the insurgents have been tainted by reports of a shortage of weapons and low morale, while heavily armed jihadist groups have gradually regained a foothold in the region.
The attack on Kukawa, a historic city that was once a major link in 19th-century trans-Saharan trade, underscores the credibility of government claims, said Bulama Bukarti, an extremism expert and analyst at the Tony Blair Institute.
“This is a major setback for the government’s efforts to resettle internally displaced persons and refugees,” he said. “There have been fears that insufficient security has been put in place to ensure the safety and security of returnees, and this attack confirms just that.”
He added: “The army continues to insist that it succeeds, but attacks like these prove that there is too much to be desired.”
Last week, the UN revealed that the aggravated state of the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria was aggravated. 10.6 million people out of the 13 million living in the Northeast would need humanitarian aid this year, up from about 8 million people in January. 1.8 million people remain displaced by jihadist conflict.
