04 September 2014

Boko Haram crisis


The BBC has an article about Boko Haram:
Bodies remain littered on the streets of a northern Nigerian town after it was seized by militant Islamists, a lawmaker has told the BBCBoko Haram fighters were patrolling the streets of Bama, preventing people from burying the dead, Ahmed Zanna said. The state government denied the town had fallen.
Officials said nearly thirty thousand people had been displaced by fighting in Bama, a key town in the battle for control of Nigeria's north-eastern Borno state.
Earlier this week, the Nigeria Security Network (NSN) think-tank said the group had made "lightning territorial gains" in recent months, raising fears that the country could disintegrate like Syria and Iraq, where the Islamic State (IS) rebel group has declared a caliphate.
Boko Haram has also said it has set up a caliphate in the areas it controls, but it is not clear if the two groups are allied.
Zanna, a senator in Borno, said the humanitarian situation in Bama was "terrible" and there had been a "lot of killings" in the town. "So many bodies litter the streets, and people are not allowed to even go and bury the dead ones. So the situation is getting worse and worse," Zanna told the BBC's Newsday program after speaking to a resident who fled the town.
Boko Haram has captured a string of towns in northern-eastern Nigeria in recent months, fueling concern that it could advance towards the main city, MaiduguriZanna said it would be "catastrophic" if Boko Haram launched an assault on Maiduguri, which has a population of more than two million. "I'm begging the government to send more troops and arms to Maiduguri," he said. "Boko Haram do come overwhelmingly because they recruited en masse in the villages in Borno state," he added.
Who are Boko Haram?
Founded in 2002, it initially focused on opposing Western education: Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language.
Launched military operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state.
Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, but also attacked police and UN headquarters in the capital, Abuja.
Some three million people affected.
Declared a terrorist group by the US in 2013.
Zanna said government forces had "gallantly" defended Bama, before it fell to Boko Haram. Residents told BBC Hausa that Boko Haram returned to the town with reinforcements after being repelled by government forces the previous day. Borno state deputy governor Zannah Umar Mustapha denied the militants had taken over Bama, which had a population of nearly three hundred thousand. He told the BBC Hausa service that the army was still fighting them.
The government's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said that nearly thirty thousand had been displaced by the fighting. "The number is growing by the hour," its spokesman Abdulkadir Ibrahim told Reuters.
Rico says that, if these wackos ever end up in our 'Bama', they'll get massacred...

No comments:

 

Casino Deposit Bonus