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Boko Haram resurgence kills 381 civilians since April: Amnesty

ABUJA (Reuters) – The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has killed 381 civilians in Nigeria and Cameroon since the beginning of April, rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday, a testament to the militant group’s deadly resurgence.

The Nigerian military has repeatedly said Boko Haram has been “defeated”. But in recent months, it has carried out a string of lethal suicide bombings and other high-profile attacks on towns and an oil exploration team.

The number of deaths since April 1 is more than double that for the preceding five months, Amnesty said.

Boko Haram has killed 223 civilians in Nigeria since April. The forcing of women and girls to act as suicide bombers has driven the sharp rise in deaths in northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon, said Amnesty.

“Boko Haram is once again committing war crimes on a huge scale, exemplified by the depravity of forcing young girls to carry explosives with the sole intention of killing as many people as they possibly can,” said Alioune Tine, Amnesty’s director for West and Central Africa.

In Nigeria, the deadliest attack was in July, when the militants abducted an oil exploration team with staff of the state oil firm and a university while they were traveling in a military convoy. Boko Haram killed 40 people and kidnapped three others, Amnesty said.

Boko Haram suicide bombers have killed 81 people in Nigeria since the start of April, said Amnesty.

In Cameroon, the Islamist insurgency has killed at least 158 people in the same period. That is also linked to a rise in suicide bombings, the deadliest of which killed 16 people in Waza in July, the rights group said.

More than 2.5 million people have been displaced or become refugees in the Lake Chad region – which includes Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad – while 7.2 million people lack secure access to food because of the conflict with Boko Haram, according to the United Nations.

The insurgency has left more than 20,000 people dead since it began in 2009.

(Reporting by Paul Carsten; editing by Andrew Roche)

Suspected Boko Haram members kill 18 people in northeast Nigeria

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 18 people in northeast Nigeria on Friday, according to local witnesses and officials, the latest in an escalating number of lethal attacks in the region.

The knife-wielding attackers, moving under cover of night, targeted people in the town of Banki, 80 miles (130 km) southeast of the city of Maiduguri in Borno state, the epicenter of the eight-year conflict with Boko Haram, said a community leader and a local member of a vigilante group.

The attack on the town, which sits on the border with Cameroon, is the latest in a string of deadly Boko Haram raids and bombings that have undermined the Nigerian military’s statements that the insurgency is all but defeated.

The frequency of attacks in northeastern Nigeria has increased in the last few months, killing at least 172 people since June 1 before Friday’s attack, according to a Reuters tally.

The attack on Banki left 18 dead, according to Modu Perobe, a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force, a regional vigilante group. Abor Ali, a local ruler, confirmed the death toll.

Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency has left at least 20,000 dead and sparked one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with tens of thousands already in famine-like conditions, according to the United Nations.

Some 8.5 million people in the worst affected parts of northeast Nigeria are now in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, with 5.2 million people lacking secure access to food, the U.N. has said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Kingimi in Maiduguri; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Tom Brown)

Suspected Boko Haram militants kill 15 in Cameroon

DOUALA, Cameroon (Reuters) – Suspected Boko Haram militants sprayed a village in remote Cameroon with automatic fire, killing 15 people and kidnapping eight others in an overnight raid near the Nigerian border, several officials said on Friday.

The attackers burned down around 30 houses in Gakara village, just outside the town of Kolofata, which has been a frequent target of suicide bombings by the Islamist group.

A government source on the ground said that 15 people had been killed, all shot dead except one who was burned alive, while another 30 had suffered bullet wounds. The mayor of Kolofata and a senior military source confirmed that an attack had taken place but did not know the death toll.

Boko Haram attacks have killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.7 million during the group’s eight-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region.

“The attack happened around midnight. The Boko Haram assailants arrived. They set 32 houses on fire … killed, pillaged, and traumatized the population,” said a district official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak.

Many people fled the village for a camp near Kolofata that houses thousands displaced by Boko Haram violence, he said.

(Reporting by Josiane Kouagheu; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Nigeria’s freed Chibok girls to return home ‘fully recovered’

By Paul Carsten

ABUJA (Reuters) – More than 100 girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram militants in the Nigerian town of Chibok in 2014 are ready to return to normal life after being released and receiving psychological and medical treatment, the government said on Friday.

Some 270 girls were originally abducted by the Islamist group but 82 were freed in May this year after mediation, adding to 24 who were released or found last year. The girls have been receiving psychological and medical care in the capital, Abuja, as part of a government rehabilitation program.

“All the 106 girls are now fully recovered, ready for re-integration with their families and the larger society, and to go back to school,” Aisha Jummai Alhassan, minister of women affairs, told a news conference.

“They are now stabilized and most of their traumatic stress disorder symptoms have been overcome and previously frequent incidents of flashbacks, insomnia and nightmares have now been successfully brought under control,” she said.

Some of them underwent surgery, and a prosthetic limb was provided for a girl who lost a leg while in captivity. Four babies were also said to be in good health.

Of the 270 girls who were originally taken, about 60 escaped soon afterwards but around 100 are still believed to be in captivity. Alhassan said negotiations to secure their release were ongoing.

Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million during an eight-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria.

The Chibok case provoked global outrage and a celebrity-backed campaign to raise awareness of the girls’ plight, but aid groups say Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands more adults and children, many of whose cases are neglected.

A United Nations human rights committee called in July for Nigeria’s government to step up efforts to rescue all women and girls abducted by Boko Haram and ensure they returned to school without stigma.

(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Suicide bombers kill 27, wound 83 in northeast Nigeria

By Ahmed Kingimi

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A woman suicide bomber blew herself up and killed 27 others at a market in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, two local officials said, in an attack bearing the hallmark of Boko Haram militants.

Two more suicide bombers detonated their devices at the gates to a nearby refugee camp, wounding many people, an emergency services official said.

In all, 83 people were wounded in the three explosions near the city of Maiduguri, epicenter of the long-running conflict between government forces and Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s military last year wrested back large swathes of territory from the Islamist insurgents. But they have struck back with renewed zeal since June, killing at least 143 people before Tuesday’s bombings and weakening the army’s control.

The group has waged an eight-year war to create an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, and provoked international outrage by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls known as the Chibok Girls in April 2014.

Its better-known faction, led by Abubakar Shekau, has mainly based itself in the sprawling Sambisa forest, and been characterized by its use of women and children as suicide bombers targeting mosques and markets.

A rival faction – based in the Lake Chad region, led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi and boasting ties to Islamic State – has in the meantime quietly become a deadly force capable of carrying out highly-organised attacks.

Last month, an oil prospecting team was captured by al-Barnawi’s group. At least 37 people, including members of the team, died when rescuers from the military and vigilantes attempted to free them.

The Boko Haram insurgency has killed 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes in the last eight years.

(Reporting by Ahmed Kingimi in Maiduguri; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Boko Haram militants kill at least 30 fishermen in northeast Nigeria: governor

Nigeria to release $1 billion from excess oil account to fight Boko Haram

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Boko Haram militants killed at least 30 fishermen in raids on communities around Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, the governor of Borno state, residents and military sources said on Tuesday.

The raids are part of renewed attacks by the militant Islamist group which, prior to the latest attacks, have led to at least 113 people being killed by insurgents since June 1.

Last month members of an oil prospecting team were kidnapped in the restive Lake Chad Basin region, prompting a rescue bid that left at least 37 dead including members of the team.

It was carried out by a Boko Haram faction allied to Islamic State which has been active around Lake Chad.

Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state which is at the epicenter of the insurgency, told journalists that Boko Haram militants had attacked and killed over 30 people in different villages in the latest attacks.

Residents and military sources said the militants ambushed fishermen in a series of raids between Saturday and Monday at villages near the northeast Nigerian border town of Baga.

Baga is at Nigeria’s border with Chad, Niger and Cameroon and in 2015 was the site of fierce fighting between the insurgents and Nigerian troops.

The Boko Haram insurgency, aimed at creating an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, has killed 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes in the last eight years.

(Reporting by Lanre Ola, Ahmed Kingimi, Kolowale Adewale and Ardo Abdullahi in Bauchi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Nigeria church shooting kills 11

ABUJA (Reuters) – Gunmen killed 11 people and wounded 18 others in a church in southeastern Nigeria on Sunday in an attack arising from a feud between members of the local community, officials said.

However, police believe that a man the gunmen were hunting for was not present in the church and so escaped the attack.

The attackers struck the church in Ozubulu early in the morning, said Garba Umar, head of police in Anambra state.

They were believed to have been trying to kill a local man, who was not identified by the authorities.

“The gunmen came thinking that their target was in the church but incidentally he was not,” Umar said, adding that the violence may be linked to drug-trafficking.

No arrests have been made, he said.

Nigeria’s southeast is predominantly Christian and the attack is a rare act of violence at a church.

Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano said the attack stemmed from a feud between members of the local community who were living outside Nigeria.

“We are not going to relent until we bring those that perpetrated this heinous crime to book,” he said.

Nigeria is wracked by insecurity, with Islamist insurgency Boko Haram having killed more than 20,000 people since 2009, sparking one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

Ethnically-charged violence is common throughout the central states and militancy is a constant threat in the oil-rich southeast.

(Reporting by Anamesere Igboeroteonwu; Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Boko Haram wing tied to IS marks resurgence by kidnapping oil workers

By Alexis Akwagyiram

LAGOS (Reuters) – A Boko Haram faction with ties to Islamic State and responsible for the kidnapping of a Nigerian oil prospecting team which led to at least 37 people being killed has become a deadly force capable of carrying out highly-organized attacks.

Nigerian government forces have focused on crushing the best-known branch of the Islamist militant group whose leader Abubakar Shekau has led an eight-year insurgency to create an Islamic state in the northeast which has killed thousands.

But while Nigeria has claimed the capture of Shekau’s main base in the Sambisa forest and freed many of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by his faction in April 2014 in Chibok town, a rival wing has developed the capacity to carry out attacks on a larger scale.

At least 37 people, including members of the team, rescuers from the military and vigilantes, died last week when security forces tried to free those being held by the Boko Haram faction led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi who is trying to thwart government efforts to explore for oil in the Lake Chad Basin.

That wing is “much better organized than the Shekau faction” which typically stages suicide bombings in mosques and markets, said Malte Liewerscheidt, senior Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft consultancy group.

“The Shekau faction does not seem to have a clear ideology or any strategy,” said Liewerscheidt. That makes it easier for al-Barnawi’s faction to recruit whereas Shekau’s faction was not trusted by locals, he said.

And despite the assessment that it is less organized, Shekau’s faction has stepped up suicide bombings in the last few weeks, killing at least 113 people since June 1, according to a Reuters tally.

The combined attacks by the two wings marks a resurgence by the group, months after President Muhammadu Buhari’s announcement in December 2016 that Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa forest had been captured.

Boko Haram, which has killed more than 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes since 2009, split last year.

The division led by Shekau, Boko Haram’s most recognizable figure known for videos taunting Nigerian authorities circulated on social media, operates in the northeastern Sambisa forest and usually deploys girls as suicide bombers.

IS NAMED AL-BARNAWI

But, since Islamic State named al-Barnawi as Boko Haram’s leader in August 2016 after the west African militants pledged allegiance the previous year, his Lake Chad-based faction has been moving fighters and ammunition across porous borders in northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

The head of a private Nigerian security firm, who did not want to be named, said al-Barnawi’s IS affiliation meant his wing benefits from sub-Saharan trade routes to ship weapons from lawless Libya where Islamic State is active.

His group has been planning a larger scale attack for some time, said a Western diplomat, speaking anonymously.

Boko Haram launched two attacks in June – the most prolonged raid on the northeastern city of Maiduguri in 18 months and an attack on a police convoy – which were more ambitious than routine suicide attacks. Shekau’s faction is widely believed to have been behind the two attacks.

Buhari has repeatedly said the insurgents are on the verge of defeat since the army, helped by neighboring countries, wrested back most of the land in Nigeria’s northeast, an area the size of Belgium, that the militants took in early 2015.

But security experts say the territorial gain has given a false impression because much of the liberated areas beyond main roads patrolled by the army remain no-go areas where displaced people cannot return to farm.

“While insurgent-held territory has been recaptured, this was conflated with a military victory,” said Ryan Cummings, director of Africa-focused risk management company Signal Risk.

“All that has happened is that Boko Haram has reverted to the asymmetrical armed campaign it had waged for the seven out of the eight years of its armed campaign against the Nigerian state,” he said.

The military has been forced to concentrate forces around Maiduguri, capital of the insurgency’s birthplace, Borno state, where Shekau’s faction has stepped up suicide bombings, which now occur on a near-daily basis.

RANSOM MONEY

A security analyst said Shekau’s wing used ransom money paid by the government to free Chibok girls to buy weapons and recruit fighters — the attacks stepped up after a deal was brokered in May to free 82 of them.

The return of experienced commanders freed in exchange for the girls had also bolstered his group, said the analyst, who asked not to be named. “The fact that they were held for some time suggests they were serious players,” he said.

Acting-President Yemi Osinbajo, in power while Buhari takes medical leave in Britain for an unspecified ailment, responded to the oil team’s abduction and frequent attacks by ordering military chiefs to “scale up their efforts” in Borno, according to a statement.

The military said armed forces chiefs relocated to Maiduguri on August 1. “This move and action are expected to give impetus to the military effort,” it said, without elaborating. The theater army commander is already based in the city.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Abuja; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Peter Millership)

Suspected Boko Haram militants issue video of three kidnapped oil survey team members

A car drives towards a Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) sector 5 sign in Maiduguri, Nigeria August 30, 2016. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde

BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Suspected Boko Haram members released a video on Saturday that shows three kidnapped members of an oil exploration team in northeastern Nigeria, one of whom asks the government to reduce the use of force against the jihadists.

The team, which included university staff and employees from Nigeria’s state oil firm, was kidnapped by suspected members of the Islamist militant group while searching for oil in the conflict-ridden northeast on Tuesday.

A rescue attempt on Wednesday ended in the deaths of at least 37 members of the original prospecting team and the rescuers, including Nigerian military and armed vigilantes, according to officials and military sources.

It prompted a change of tactic by the government amid a spate of attacks by the group whose bid to create an Islamic state in the northeast led to the deaths of at least 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes since 2009.

In the video, seen by Reuters, the men are seen seemingly unharmed and sitting crosslegged on a red floor in front of a patterned wall. The video was obtained by Sahara Reporters, a U.S.-based journalism website.

The University of Maiduguri confirmed the three men in the video were their staff members. It also released a photo of them late on Friday.

“I want to advise that the use of excessive force is not the solution. “We want to call on the federal government to meet this demand and, as promised, they will release us immediately,” said one of the men, who identified himself as a lecturer at the university.

The jihadist group split last year, with one faction led by Abubakar Shekau operating from the Sambisa Forest — a vast woodland area in the northeast — and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region where the search for oil took place.

“I want to call the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo, to come to our rescue to meet the demand of soldiers of calipha under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Barnawi,” said the same man in the four-and-a-half minute video.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday dispatched military chiefs to the northeast to help regain control of the situation after insurgents have launched attacks with renewed zeal in the past few months.

The state oil company, which contracted university staff, has for more than a year surveyed what it says may be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin.

It wants to reduce its reliance on the southern Niger Delta energy hub, which last year was hit by militant attacks on oil facilities.

(Reporting by Ardo Abdullahi and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi; Writing by Paul Carsten and Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

A dozen killed, over 40 wounded in Cameroon suicide bomb attack

DOUALA (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers killed at least 12 people and wounded over 40 others in a small town in northern Cameroon near the Nigerian border late on Wednesday, a senior army source and a local official told Reuters.

“There were 14 deaths, including the two suicide bombers, and 42 wounded,” said an army colonel responsible for evacuating the wounded who asked to remain anonymous. “The attack was perpetrated by one suicide bomber, and the other was shot dead.”

The attack was carried out by two women who walked into a busy area in the center of Waza, five miles (8 km) from the Nigerian border, said Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor for the Far North region where the attack took place. He said that 13 had been killed and 43 wounded. A baby was among the dead, he said.

Many were seriously wounded and were flown to nearby hospitals, he said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the region has been a frequent target of Boko Haram militants in their eight-year bid to carve out an Islamic caliphate beyond Nigeria.

Last month, nine were killed in the town of Kolofata when two children carrying explosives blew themselves up near a camp housing people displaced by Boko Haram violence.

In eight years, Boko Haram attacks have killed more than 20,000 people in the Lake Chad region, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger and, according to the latest U.N. refugee agency figures, displaced 2.7 million.

(Reporting By Josiane Kouagheu, writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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