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Boko Haram fighters kill more than 40 farm workers in Nigeria
Fear and terror: Boko Haram. Photograph: AP / Boko Haram
Fighters from the Islamist group Boko Haram killed more than 40 farm workers in northeast Nigeria on Saturday, according to a watchdog. There are at least 43 victims, militia leader Babakura Kolo told AFP news agency.
Six people were seriously injured in the attack near the city of Maiduguri. Eight other workers may have been kidnapped.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack. “The whole country has been hurt by these senseless killings,” he said.
According to Kolos, whose militia fights against Boko Haram, the victims were attacked and handcuffed while working in the rice fields of Koshobe village. Then they cut their throats.
Recovered corpses
“We recovered 43 bodies,” Kolo said. The attack was “without doubt” carried out by fighters from the Boko Haram militia. Islamists killed a total of 22 farm workers in two attacks near Maiduguri in October.
According to another member of the self-defense group, Ibrahim Liman, the peasants had traveled northeast from Sokoto state, some 1,000 kilometers away, to work in the fields. The eight missing persons are believed to have been abducted by Boko Haram fighters.
Maiduguri is the capital of the state of Borno. Local elections were held there on Saturday for the first time since the Islamist group’s armed uprising began more than ten years ago.
Postponed vote
Due to ongoing violence, the vote has been postponed time and time again. Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa branch of Iswap had increasingly targeted timber workers, ranchers and fishermen because they allegedly worked as informants for the military.
Iswap split from the Boko Haram militia in 2016, which had been using violence against an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria since 2009. Attacks by the militias and their clashes with the army killed some 36,000 people in recent years. , and two million more fled. (aeg / sda / afp)
