Nigeria’s SSS accuses Biafra activists of killing, burying 5 ‘Hausa-Fulani’ residents – Premium Times

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By Samuel Ogundipe – Nigeria’s spy agency, SSS, announced on Saturday that it has discovered mass graves of “Hausa-Fulani” residents abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, in Abia State.

The agency said IPOB carried out the massacre of people of northern Nigerian origin as part of its efforts to destabilise the country.

In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Tony Opuiyo, the SSS said the killing has triggered tension among different communities in Abia State.

Although Mr. Opuiyo said five men were killed alongside several other unidentified persons, only the names of four individuals were provided.

“The Service has uncovered the heinous role played by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in the abduction/kidnap of five Hausa-Fulani residents, namely Mohammed Gainako, Ibrahim Mohammed, Idris Yakubu and Isa Mohammed Rago at Isuikwuato LGA in Abia State,” Mr. Opuiyo said.

“The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia State, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst fifty (50) other shallow graves of unidentified persons.

“Arrest and investigation conducted so far, revealed that elements within the IPOB, carried out this dastardly action,” he added.

Mr. Opuiyo said he was alerting Nigerians to the ‘divisive’ and ‘gruesome’ activities of IPOB operatives, allegedly led by fiery broadcaster, Nnamdi Kanu.

Mr. Kanu has been standing trial for treasonable felony since he his arrest on October 17, 2015, after entering Nigeria from the UK where he lives.

“It is pertinent therefore to alert the general public that IPOB, is gradually showing its true divisive colour and objectives, while steadily embarking on gruesome actions in a bid to ignite ethnic terrorism and mistrust amongst non-indigenes in the South-East region and other parts of the country.

“Following this act, tension is currently rife among communal stakeholders in the State with possibilities of spillover to other parts of country,” Mr. Opuiyo said.

In a related development, the SSS has released an update on the recent incarceration of Khalid al-Barnawi, a former Boko Haram leader, in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, describing it as a major breakthrough.

“This Service wish (sic) to inform the general public that further to its efforts to stem the tide of terrorism in the Country, it has recorded another major breakthrough in the arrest of one Mohammed USMAN, widely known as Khalid al-Barnawi, alias Kafuri/ Naziru/Alhaji Yahaya/Malam Dauda/Alhaji Tanimu.

“Khalid al-Barnawj was apprehended by this Service on 1st April, 2016, in Lokoja, Kogi State, while hiding under a false cover. Al-Barnawi was a founding member of the Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid Da’wah Wa’l-Jihad (Boko Haram) and later the Amir of the break-away faction, Jama’at Ansarul Muslimim Fi Biladi Sudan (JAMBS).

“Khalid al-Barnawi is a trained terrorist commander, who has been coordinating terrorist activities in Nigeria, while talent-spotting and recruiting vulnerable young and able Nigerians for terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North African States and the Middle-East.

“Subject was involved in many terrorist attacks in States of the Federation, including Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto and FCT-Abuja. This resulted in the killing and maiming of innocent citizens of this Country. Al-Barnawi is also responsible for the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, on 26th August, 2011; the kidnapping of two European civil engineers in Kebbi State in May, 2011, and their subsequent murder in Sokoto State; the kidnap of a German engineer, Edgar Raupach in January, 2012, the kidnap and murder of seven expatriate staff of Setraco Construction Company at Jama’are, in Bauchi State in February, 2013, the attack of Nigerian troops at Okene in Kogi State, while on transit to Abuja for an official assignment.

“Meanwhile, subject would soon be charged to Court to face his charges after investigation is completed.

“This arrest is a major milestone in the counter-terrorism fight of this Service. This arrest has strengthened the Service’s resolve that no matter how long and far perpetrators of crime and their sponsors may run, this Service in collaboration with other sister security agencies, will bring them to justice.”

Panama Papers: Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki Under Pressure after Leak

Nigerian Senate President Bukola Saraki, at a hearing at the Code of Conduct tribunal in Abuja, September 22, 2015, has been implicated in the Panama Papers leak. AFP/Getty Images
Nigerian Senate President Bukola Saraki, at a hearing at the Code of Conduct tribunal in Abuja, September 22, 2015, has been implicated in the Panama Papers leak.
AFP/Getty Images

In Nigeria, the Panama Papers leak could be about to claim its latest high-profile victim.

Bukola Saraki, the president of the Nigerian Senate, has been caught up in the scandal relating to the leak of 11.5 million tax documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Saraki—who is currently on trial in Nigeria on charges of fraud, including false declaration of assets, all of which he denies—is accused of failing to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name. The assets include a property in London’s plush Belgravia neighborhood, as well as two companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and a third in the Seychelles, both known tax havens, according to Nigeria’s Premium Times, a media partner in the Panama Papers investigation.

Holders of public office in Nigeria are required by law to declare their own assets, as well as those of their spouse and children under 18 years of age.

Saraki issued a statement on Monday protesting his innocence, saying that he has “fully complied with the provisions of the law” on declaration of assets. The statement said that the properties in questions were held by the family of Saraki’s wife and that “the law does not require a public officer to declare assets held by the spouse’s family.”

Combined with the ongoing fraud trial, however, the revelation is likely to heap pressure on Nigeria’s third-most powerful politician behind President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

The All Progressives Congress politician previously served as the governor of Kwara state in west Nigeria between 2003 and 2011 before entering the Senate, the upper house of Nigeria’s National Assembly. A qualified physician and former banker, he was elected as Senate president in June 2015. The issuing of an arrest warrant for Saraki in September 2015 by Nigeria’s Code of Conduct Tribunal on 13 counts of alleged corruption was the first time in Nigerian history that a sitting Senate president had been subjected to such a warrant.

Saraki’s trial revolves around his time as Kwara state governor. Charges against him include acquiring wealth beyond his legitimate earnings and holding a foreign bank account while in public office, which violates the fifth schedule of Nigeria’s constitution.

Prosecution witness Michael Wetkas, who headed up the anti-graft agency team that investigated Saraki, said on Tuesday that Saraki had laundered money through British and U.S. bank accounts and had failed to properly declare most of his assets. According to Wetkas, Saraki’s Nigerian account had a total inflow and outflow of up to 4 billion naira ($20 million) between 2005 and 2013, AFP reported.

 

 

2,000 hostages freed as African troops close in on Boko Haram

Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin established a joint military force last year to combat the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers killed at least 300 Boko Haram militants and liberated at least 2,000 people during security operations. File photo by Oleg Zabielin/Shutterstock
Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin established a joint military force last year to combat the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers killed at least 300 Boko Haram militants and liberated at least 2,000 people during security operations. File photo by Oleg Zabielin/Shutterstock

ABUJA, Nigeria, April 6 (UPI) — At least 2,000 hostages were freed and more than 300 Islamist militants killed as government troops closed in on Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

The regional security operation took place Sunday and Monday in and surrounding Nigeria’s northern town of Walassa, near the Cameroon border. Cameroon is part of a 8,700-strong coalition with Benin, Chad, Nigeria and Niger, united in the fight against Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March 2015.

Cameroonian soldiers of the Multinational Joint Task Force and Nigerian Army soldiers from the 152nd battalion also destroyed a Boko Haram logistics base where explosives were manufactured. The operation seeks to flush out Boko Haram militants from hideouts along the borders of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

“We recovered several weapons, destroyed vehicles, generators and other war materials,” Cameroonian Gen. Bouba Dobekreo said Tuesday.

Dobekreo said 17 villages had been freed and that his forces are prepared to eradicate the Boko Haram threat.

Nigeria’s defense headquarters recently established a camp to rehabilitate former Boko Haram members. The effort, called Operation Safe Corridor, is “geared toward rehabilitating and reintegrating the repentant and surrendering Boko Haram members back into normal life in the society,” Nigerian Army public relations Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar said in a statement.

Boko Haram was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2013. The militant Islamic group seeks to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and has ruthlessly targeted civilians.

Nigeria offers amnesty to reformed Boko Haram fighters

How To Identify Boko Haram Members

Abuja – Nigeria has established a camp to rehabilitate and reintegrate Islamist Boko Haram militants who have surrendered and are sorry for their actions, the military said on Tuesday.

The camp “is geared towards rehabilitating and reintegrating the repentant and the surrendering Boko Haram members back into normal life,” it said in a statement.

The military did not give any details of the camp is or how it run, but said the repentant militants would be given vocational training so they can help contribute to the economy.

An estimated 20,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram began its campaign of violence in 2009 to carve out a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

More than 2.6 million people have fled their homes since, but some of the internally displaced have begun returning.

Nigerian military authorities also appealed to those still carrying arms to repent, after recently announcing the capture of dozens of jihadist militants.

The statement said that troops will continue their offensive against insurgents in the northeast, and warned reluctant Boko Haram members of “imminent calamity”.

Panama Papers heap pressure on Nigeria Senate chief facing trial

Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin's name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation's media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.
Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation’s media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.

Lagos (AFP) – Embattled Nigerian Senate president Bukola Saraki on Tuesday brushed off allegations of wrongdoing concerning his wife’s offshore assets revealed in the Panama Papers, as he went on trial in Abuja on fraud charges.

The latest graft claim to hit the senate president emerged from the “Panama Papers” investigation into a trove of 11.5 million tax documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in creating offshore shell companies.

Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation’s media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.

Under Nigerian law, it is mandatory for the president, the vice-president, state governors and their deputies to declare their assets along with those of their wife and children under 18 when they take office and before stepping down.

But Saraki said he did not do anything illegal and argued that the assets are listed as part of his wife’s “family estate”.

“I’ve fully complied with (the) law on asset declaration,” Saraki said in a statement issued on Monday and posted on his website.

“The law does not require a public officer to declare assets held by the spouse’s family,” Saraki’s spokesman Yusuph Olaniyonu said.

“It is public knowledge that Mrs Saraki comes from a family of independent means and wealth with numerous and varied assets acquired over decades in family estates and investments.”

– Huge payments –

Saraki’s corruption trial finally got under way before the Code of Conduct Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday after months of delays.

He faces charges including false declaration of assets while he was governor of the western state of Kwara from 2003 to 2011, all charges that he denies.

Michael Wetkas, head of the team that investigated Saraki at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, took the stand as the first prosecution witness, telling the court Saraki had made massive payments into private company accounts.

He used the deposits to repay personal loans from a local commercial bank and purchased property in Nigeria and abroad, Wetkas said.

Wetkas also said Saraki had laundered money through his British and US Bank accounts and failed to properly declare most of the assets.

Between 2005 and 2013, his Nigerian account had a total inflow and outflow of up to 4 billion naira ($20 million, 17.6 million euros), Wetkas said, with the local bank loan being the major source of the inflow.

A trained physician and former banker, the senate president is considered Nigeria’s third most senior politician behind President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

Yet anti-corruption campaigners fear that the powerful politician will, like others before him, outmanoeuvre the law.

“The latest revelation about Saraki’s family should not surprise anybody,” Debo Adeniran, chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders lobby group, told AFP of the Panama Papers leaks.

“We suggest that the Nigerian anti-graft agencies should collaborate with their foreign partners to move against Saraki and make him accountable,” Adeniran added.

“If Saraki escapes the Nigerian laws because of the loopholes and leniency in our laws, the international community should not allow him to escape.

“He should get the Ibori’s treatment,” Adeniran said, referring to the case of former Delta state governor James Ibori who was acquited in Nigeria on corruption charges but jailed in London for a similar offence.

Several high-profile politicians are currently standing trial as part of Buhari’s drive to tackle endemic corruption in Nigeria, Africa’s largest crude producer and biggest economy.

Nigeria’s Shiites say they are not planning joint attacks with Boko Haram

BY   |  Newsweek/

Shiite Muslims mark the festival of Ashura in Kano, Nigeria, October 24, 2015. Nigeria's main Shiite group has denied reports it is planning a coalition against the military with Boko Haram.
Shiite Muslims mark the festival of Ashura in Kano, Nigeria, October 24, 2015. Nigeria’s main Shiite group has denied reports it is planning a coalition against the military with Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s main Shiite group says it has no links with Boko Haram and is not planning a coalition with the militant group.

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) clashed with the Nigerian Army in Zaria, Kaduna state in northern Nigeria in December 2015 after the army claimed IMN members attempted to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff. Some 300 IMN members were killed in the clashes, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, while the group’s spiritual leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky was arrested and remains in detention.

The movement released a statement on Monday, claiming that reports were circulating among the Nigerian security services, linking the IMN with the Sunni fundamentalist group Boko Haram, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions during its six-year insurgency in Nigeria.

Ibrahim Musa, the IMN’s media spokesperson, told Newsweek that the reports had been circulated by Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (DSS), to give justification for a crackdown on the movement. “The Islamic Movement is totally and completely different from the so-called Boko Haram. Sheikh Zakzaky has said it many times that we only talk but we don’t fight,” says Musa.

Newsweek attempted to contact the DSS for comment but no one was immediately available.

Boko Haram, which considers Shiite Muslims to be infidels, has previously attacked IMN gatherings, Musa says. He blames the group, led by the elusive Abubakar Shekau, for a suicide bombing at a religious procession in Potiskum, Yobe state, which killed at least 20 people in November 2014.

In 2015, a male suicide bomber detonated his device during a Shiite pilgrimage from Kano to Zaria, killing at least 21 people. Boko Haram released a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, saying they would continue to fight “against Shia polytheists…until we cleanse the earth of their filth.” Sheikh Zakzaky, however, denied that the group was responsible and suggested the Nigerian military may have been behind the attack. According to Musa, this is because Zakzaky and the IMN see Boko Haram as a tool used by the military to persecute their group.

“If a group with such a venomous agenda against us can do this to us, then how can we go into strategic alliance with it? It’s impossible,” says Musa.

Zakzaky has been in detention since December 2015 and the IMN has claimed that a further 700 of their members are still missing as a result of the clashes with the army. A Kaduna state government inquiry into the events has been criticized by the IMN as biased and Musa says the group is still campaigning for the unconditional release of its leader.

In a previous comment to Newsweek , Nigerian defense spokesman Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar said that it would be inappropriate to comment on Zakzaky’s detention but that the army had created a new human rights investigatory committee to investigate alleged abuses, such as the Zaria clashes, and that the military had “nothing to hide.”

Bring back our school: anger in Chibok over lack of education

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Chibok (Nigeria) (AFP) – There’s not much left of the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenagers in the dead of night nearly two years ago.

Even the word “girls” on the school sign outside has been painted over in black — hidden from the world, just like the 219 students who are still missing.

Up the dusty track and beyond the heavy wrought-iron gates, soldiers stand guard with assault rifles, although there are few buildings and no people to protect.

Only the peeling light-green walls of the school’s main school building remain. Metal beams that supported the roof lie rusting. Rough grass pokes through shattered concrete.

The government of Nigeria’s former president Goodluck Jonathan announced shortly before last year’s election that rebuilding work had begun at the school.

But apart from piles of breeze blocks, there’s no evidence of any construction. The sprawling site is silent apart from the sound of cicadas and gusts of hot wind through the desert scrub.

Ayuba Alamson Chibok steps through the rubble where the girls’ dormitories once stood, picking up a bed frame from the scorched earth — one of the few signs the site was once inhabited.

“If the government wanted to do something, let them call the contractor… to put somebody on the ground,” the town elder told AFP, his voice rising in anger.

“Education here in Chibok has really come to zero level. This is the only school we have in Chibok and it has been destroyed.”

– Abandoned –

The second anniversary of the mass kidnapping on April 14 will bring renewed attention to the remote town in southern Borno state, which was little known until two years ago but is now synonomous with the brutal conflict.

Parents of the abducted girls plan to gather at the school on the day itself to pray for their safe return, said Yakubu Nkeki, from a support group helping those left behind.

But 16 fathers and two mothers will not be there, he said. They have either died or are now among the estimated 20,000 killed in the nearly seven-year Islamist insurgency.

Others live with the physical and psychological effects of the disappearances. High blood pressure and stomach ulcers are common, he said.

Yet despite the global outrage online at the kidnapping and promises of action, many people in Chibok say they feel abandoned.

“Nothing has been done,” said Nkeki, a primary school teacher, questioning why nearby towns recently liberated from Boko Haram have since been able to re-open schools.

The Government Girls Secondary School was the only state-run school in Chibok but it has been shut since the kidnapping. Calls for a boys school have come to nothing, he said.

“Really, Boko Haram has achieved its aim by saying they don’t want Western education,” he added.

– Hardship –

In the town, life goes on as best it can. Upturned bicycles are repaired in the street, hawkers trade groundnuts from see-through plastic buckets and boys push wheelbarrows full of tart oranges.

The single main street, like the dirt road into and out of the town, is unpaved. Every vehicle kicks up choking dust. Electricity cables hang to the ground from damaged poles.

In January, three suicide bombers killed 13 people in Chibok. At the mosque, worshippers, including young children, are now screened outside for explosives.

Vigilantes assisting the military stand guard with single-shot, home-made muskets in a town that has been largely inaccessible because of insecurity.

“We have hardship,” admitted Buluma Dawa, a 56-year-old bookseller. “There is no light, no water, no road and security-wise it’s not enough for us in Chibok.”

Dawa and others are at a loss to explain why, suggesting the state government has no interest in developing rural areas.

“We hope that on the two years’ anniversary (of the kidnapping), we pray that people will remember Chibok because… nothing is improving at all…

“We have a lot of children living at home without doing anything… They will suffer, there is nothing else.

“If there is no education the poor people cannot even achieve.”

– Waiting –

Some of the missing schoolgirls’ parents can be found in Mbalala, a 10-minute drive from Chibok through an area still known for Boko Haram activity.

There’s little movement in the market place, only the sound of children playing, the bleating of goats and an imam’s sermon over the loudspeakers of the mosque.

Young girls in blue and white hijabs sit on piles of mud bricks; boys wash a goat tethered to a pole while others fetch water from a well, pouring it into plastic buckets.

Yawale Dunya is among the men sitting mostly silently on benches in the shade of cracked mud-brick houses or cross-legged playing cards.

The 41-year-old farmer has been able to do little else since his 15-year-old daughter Hawa was abducted. His fingers pick distractedly at prayer beads.

Military successes against the insurgents have kept his hopes alive of Hawa’s return and he runs through the scenario repeatedly in his head.

“When I see my daughter coming back to me I will feel very much joy in my heart,” he said.

“All the small sickness and other things will disappear and I will be very happy in my life.”

The brutal toll of Boko Haram’s attacks on civilians

By Kevin Uhrmacher and Mary Beth Sheridan  |  WP

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ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS SINCE 2011 Circles are sized based on number of fatalitie

As the Islamic State’s attacks in Europe have captured the world’s attention, an ISIS-affiliated group has been waging an even deadlier campaign in Africa.

Hundreds killed when 20 attackers detonated coordinated blasts at police stations around a city. Fifty dead when suicide bombers, including women and children, attacked a market and camps housing people trying to escape the violence. Fifty Christians targeted and killed in a student housing area near a school.

People gather around burnt cars near a Catholic church after a bomb blast in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on December 25, 2011. (Sunday Aghaeze/Getty Images)
People gather around burnt cars near a Catholic church after a bomb blast in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on December 25, 2011. (Sunday Aghaeze/Getty Images)
Young girls fleeing Boko Haram walk past livestock burned by the militants on Feb. 6 in Mairi village, near Maiduguri. (AFP/Getty Images)
Young girls fleeing Boko Haram walk past livestock burned by the militants on Feb. 6 in Mairi village, near Maiduguri. (AFP/Getty Images)

These are a few of the hundreds of horrors wrought regularly by Boko Haram, an Islamist militant organization based in Nigeria, over the past six years.

[It’s not just the Islamic State. Other terror groups surge in West Africa.]

The group’s rise, some experts say, is attributable to government corruption and economic differences between the Muslim northern areas and more populous and prosperous Christian South.

While military forces have had some success regaining territory in the past year, Boko Haram continues to carry out attacks on civilians.

Last year was the group’s deadliest yet, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which tracks civil unrest and political violence in Africa and Asia.

Researchers recorded more than 6,000 fatalities resulting from Boko Haram attacks aimed at civilians. Because the counts below include only attacks on civilians, and not battles over territory, they underestimate what some say is a total of 15,000 people killed by the group.

Deaths in attacks aimed at civilians, by month

Jan. 2015: A multi-day attack in the town of Baga left about 2,000 dead, some estimates suggest.
Jan. 2015: A multi-day attack in the town of Baga left about 2,000 dead, some estimates suggest.

Conflict in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has spilled over into neighboring nations, including Cameroon, which recently launched a campaign to retake territory from the militants. Chad, Benin and Niger have also contributed soldiers to the fight.

How Boko Haram evolved

A government crackdown in 2009 led the group to turn to violence. In 2010, a jailbreak freed more than 700 inmates. Increasingly in the following years, militants carried out hundreds of attacks, many that killed more than 10, and some that claimed hundreds.

2011

114 dead in 32 attacks

Boko Haram was established in 2002 in Maiduguri, but it was years before it spawned an insurgency. By 2011, its fighters were attacking government officials, police and religious figures. That December, it launched a

suicide attack on a U.N. regional headquarters in Abuja.

2012

910 dead in 148 attacks

The insurgents increased the sophistication of their attacks, with a gunfire-and-bomb assault on government buildings that killed at least 185 people in January in the Northern city of Kano.

2013

1,008 dead in 108 attacks

As Boko Haram’s attacks grew more brutal, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three states in the northeast. The U.S. government

designated Boko Haram a terrorist organization.

2014

3,425 dead in 220 attacks

The group gained international attention after its fighters kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls, which prompted the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign. That August, Boko Haram announced it had established a “caliphate” in the expanding territory it controlled.

2015

6,006 dead in 270 attacks

Boko Haram declared its loyalty to the Islamic State. Troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger launched an offensive that eventually recaptured many towns from the militants.

2016

422 dead in 36 attacks

Boko Haram has been forced from much of the territory it controlled, but it continues to carry out suicide

bombings in populated areas in northeastern Nigeria.

An aerial view of the destroyed town of Gwoza, Boko Haram's base in northern Nigeria, recently retaken by the Nigerians, on April 8, 2015. (Jane Hahn for the Washington Post)
An aerial view of the destroyed town of Gwoza, Boko Haram’s base in northern Nigeria, recently retaken by the Nigerians, on April 8, 2015. (Jane Hahn for the Washington Post)

As government forces have reclaimed territory, the group’s scorched-earth tactics have been on display.

“The scene was post-apocalyptic, an entire city destroyed. Almost every building, it seemed, had been ransacked or set on fire,” Washington Post reporter Kevin Sieff wrote last year after touring the group’s former capital city, Gwoza. “Schools were in ruin. Bodies decayed in a pile.”

Millions of Nigerians fleeing violence

A girl does laundry in the Dalori camp for internally displaced persons in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which houses close to 20,000 people. (Jane Hahn for the Washington Post)
A girl does laundry in the Dalori camp for internally displaced persons in Maiduguri, Nigeria, which houses close to 20,000 people. (Jane Hahn for the Washington Post)

Stopping the insurgency is not the only crisis Nigeria faces. More than 2 million Nigerians have been forced to leave their homes to escape the violence. The map below shows the number of internally displaced persons by country, as reported by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center:

Recent estimate from the International Organization for Migration
Recent estimate from the International Organization for Migration

While it may not draw the attention of the West as frequently as the Islamic State, Boko Haram is one of the most devastating terrorist organizations in the world. Regaining territory from the group will only be the first step in a long process of healing the deep wounds it has inflicted.

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