More than 677 women and children rescued from the clutches of Boko Haram

#BokoHaram #Nigeria #Chibokgirls #Sambisa The military of Nigeria has intensified its attacks on camps of Boko Haram in the Sambisa forest and have destroyed many of these camps simultaneously, rescuing more than 677 women and children. These people had been kept imprisoned by the Boko Haram and many of the girls and women have become pregnant.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 3 May 2015.

Out of those rescued, a group of 275 have been brought to a refugee camp in northeast Nigeria. They arrived in a convoy of armed vehicles after a journey that lasted three days. There were two newborn babies among them and all of them have been taken to a school in Yola. This was converted into a refugee camp for people who have been displaced by the Islamist group. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is being entrusted with the task of caring for them.
It may be recalled that nearly 250 schoolgirls had been kidnapped from their school in Chibok last year and it is not known if any of the women rescued now are the same schoolgirls.

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200 girls rescued from Sambisa forest by Nigerian Army are not Chibok girls

#Chibok #BokoHaram #Nigeria #Sambisa Nigerian army conducted a raid against the Boko Haram militants in the Sambisa Forest and has, apparently, managed to rescue 200 girls and 93 women during a military operation as reported in news.sky.com dated 29 April 2015.
In the offensive that happened in the northeast of the country, the army destroyed three militant camps. However, as revealed by an army spokesman, the rescued girls are not those who had abducted from their school in Chibok in April 2014.

It may be recalled that Boko Haram had kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls near the northern village of Chibok last April and, while a few succeeded to escape, most of the girls are still missing. Their abduction had led to an international outcry and, it is believed that they have been kept imprisoned in the dense and heavily-mined Sambisa Forest.
This forest is situated around 60 miles from Chibok and, has been pounded by air raids for weeks after which the ground troops gained entry last week.
The activities of Boko Haram has been blamed for the death of nearly 10,000 people last year and, over and above that, some 1.5 million people have been forced to flee from their homes because of threats of the group.

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More than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped last year by Boko Haram have vanished

#ChibokSchoolgirls #BringBackOurGirls #BokoHaram #Gwoza It was a well-orchestrated kidnapping by Boko Haram of more than 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria but, even after a lapse of one year, no progress has been made by the authorities to rescue the girls.
The daring kidnapping had drawn global condemnation and the campaign group BringBackOurGirls believes that there is evidence that some girls of the group were seen in the town of Gwoza in northeast Nigeria. This was, till recently, the main operational base of the militant terror group.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 14 April 2015.

It is understood that even after the Nigerian military entered the town and claimed to have retaken it nothing much is known about what they have found. Incidentally, it was one week before the country went to the polls.
Nigeria's President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has indicated that cracking down on Boko Haram and recovering the schoolgirls was among his top priorities. As per a report by Amnesty International, at least 2,000 women and girls have been abducted by Boko Haram from the beginning of 2014.
Boko Haram is using these girls as sex slaves and even trained to fight. It has been revealed by one such woman to Amnesty that she had been kidnapped and subsequently forced into marriage and then repeatedly raped and sexually abused. Moreover, she was given training to use weapons and forced to take part in Boko Haram battles. One such battle was against her own village.

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Fresh attack of Boko Haram on Maiduguri

#bokoharam #maiduguri #nigeria #bornostate Militants of the Islamist group of Boko Haram have launched a fresh assault on the strategically important Nigerian city of Maiduguri as reported in bbc.com dated 1 February 2015. There were reports of gunfire on the streets of the northern city following an attack that began in the early hours of Sunday. There were sounds of heavy artillery fire as the militants attacked the city from four directions.
This attack has come a week after Boko Haram's last attempt of capturing the capital of Borno state. The attack was repelled by the Nigerian army with heavy loss of life.
This Boko Haram group had begun guerrilla operations in 2009 and their objective was to create an Islamic state. In the process, it has already taken over the control of many towns and villages in north-eastern Nigeria in the last year. Their last attempt to take over Maiduguri a week ago was stopped by the military. However, they did succeed to capture the town of Monguno located 125-Km outside the city and also took over a military base.
The conflict has already displaced at least 1.5 million people and unconfirmed reports indicate a loss of lives of the order of 2000 last year.
As to the latest attack, the security forces are tight lipped and have so far not commented – their handling of the six-year insurgency has often met with criticism and the loss of Maiduguri would be another major setback.

10-year-old girl suicide bomber kills 19 in a Maiduguri market in Nigeria

#BokoHaram #suicidebomber #Maiduguri It was an incident of innocent girls being used as suicide bombers by militant groups. In seems a 10-year-old girl suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowded market in northern Nigeria, killing at least 19 people.
The incident happened in a market in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. It was packed with shoppers and traders when the attack happened at around noon time when the girl was being searched at the entrance to the market.
In the opinion of Civilian vigilante Ashiru Mustapha, the girl was hardly 10 years old and was probably not even aware of what was strapped to her body. It was an example of innocents being exploited due to their ignorance.
No group has claimed responsibility for the suicide blast, but finger of suspicion point to Boko Haram who often carries out attacks in the area and has increasingly used women and young girls as human bombs. Their demand is for a hardline Islamic state.

Nearly 2000 massacred in Nigeria by Boko Haram militants

#BokoHaram #Nigeria #Baga #AmnestyInternational In a fresh round of violence in Nigeria, militants of Boko Haram have reportedly massacred over 2000 civilians in Baga – most of them were children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough to dodge the bullets of the militants.
The bodies were strewn in bushes in Nigeria and the extremist attack has been labeled by Amnesty International as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.
The fighting raged in and around Baga, a town on the border with Chad. This is where the insurgents had seized an important military base.
The district head Baba Abba Hassan has revealed that most victims are those who could not outrun the attackers who drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.
An Amnesty International statement has indicated that the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.
Earlier, in a 14 March 2014 attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri city, the number of dead was more than 600 and the latest incident in Baga is more terrible. In the March 2014 incident, soldiers had gunned down unarmed detainees freed. The figure of 600 is based on satellite imagery.
As a result of unrest in Nigeria due to insurgency of over five years, more than 10,000 people have been killed last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, over one million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into neighboring Chad and Cameroon.

13-year-old Nigerian girl refuses to bow to dictates of Boko Haram

#bokoharam #suicidebomber A 13-year-old Nigerian girl has refused to wear a suicide vest and bow to the dictates of Boko Haram. Her father had given her to the terror group but, even though she was forced to wear the belt, she did not detonate the device.
The girl has revealed that she was made to wear a bomb belt and taken to a market in Nigeria by the Boko Haram extremists but she refused to detonate the device. She told her captors that she had told her captors that she had no intention to be a suicide bomber.
It seems she had allowed them to strap the bomb on her because they threatened to bury her alive if she did not. After strapping her with the bomb, she was taken to a market in Kano, Nigeria's second largest city in the north, along with two other girls, who detonated the bombs.
As a result of the explosions, four people were killed on 10 December and Zahara'u, the girl, said that she was too scared to detonate the bomb when she saw the aftermath of what her counterparts had done. The girl was injured in the blasts and she managed to make her way to a hospital where police arrested her as she was undergoing treatment. The Boko Haram militant group has been increasingly using female suicide bombers.

2014 – The year of terrorism, bloodshed and violence

#bokoharam #crimea #ISIS #PakTaliban 2014 was a year of bloodshed, terrorism and violence from Syria to Ukraine and the atrocities of the ISIS in Iraq, the Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan.
While the civil population revolted against the authoritarian rule of its President Bashar al-Assad and the US and Russia took sides for and against President Assad, other countries were divided on which side to support. It became a daily war on the streets and loss of innocent lives with refugees spilling over to neighboring countries. Till the ISIS descended on the scene.
This was the new face of terror and its brutal methods sent shock waves throughout the world. In order to prove its intentions, it beheaded a number of American and British captives and sent across the videos. Then there were the atrocities committed on women with reports of them slaughtering the women en-masse if they refused to get converted to Islam or get married to members of the ISIS. Many women had been kept as sex slaves. As a result, the US and Europe began attacking ISIS hideouts and eliminating its leaders. The nature of bloodshed unleashed by the ISIS has no parallels in history.
The Boko-Haram in Nigeria is another dreaded terror setup - in April, it kidnapped a group of 250 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok. The girls are believed to have been kept prisoners in a jungle and, while a few of them have managed to escape, the fate of the others ae not known even after nine months. Unconfirmed reports have indicated that they might have been sold off as sex slaves. Recently, the terror group attacked a village and took away women and children as hostages after killing the men and burning down the village.
And, of course, the annexation of Crimea by Russia led to a fight with Ukraine in which Europe sided with Ukraine and imposed sanctions on Russia, it was a fight between the government forces of Ukraine against the pro-Russian supporters who had installed their own rule in Crimea and took over important towns. This fight has led to death of hundreds and thousands have been displaced from their homes.

Terrorism in Nigeria –Boko Haram strikes again, kidnaps 185 women and children

#BokoHaram Another incident of terrorism rocks Nigeria - Boko Haram insurgents are reported to have kidnapped at least 185 women and children, and killed 32 people in a raid in northeastern Nigeria.
The gunmen came in pickup trucks and attacked the village of Gumsuri, just north of Chibok – they shot down the men and herded away the women and children in the trucks. They also burned down the village by using petrol bombs.
The militants had stormed the village from two directions – that way, the local vigilantes who had repelled Boko Haram attacks over the course of the year, were caught by surprise.
It seems news of this attack took four days to emerge because of a serious lack of communication in the region – many telecommunications towers had been disabled by the militants in previous attacks.
Local officials came to know about the attack from residents who succeeded in fleeing out to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
Boko Haram has been carrying out terror activities in northern Nigeria regularly since 2009 – they have attacked police, schools, churches and civilians, and bombed a number of government buildings. In April, the Boko Haram militants had kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok and, while a few of the girls managed to escape, many have been sold into slavery.