Boko Haram sect
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
There are indications that the need to feed the over 200 students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, abducted by Boko Haram insurgents on April 14 has put pressure on the Islamic terrorist group to steal food items and loot communities close to Sambisa Forest in the North East.
Saturday PUNCH investigations revealed that the violent Islamic sect had in the past week stepped up the looting of villages, markets and food stores in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states for food items including grains and bread.
Residents of these communities toldSaturday PUNCH that the rate at which the insurgents stole their foodstuffs was unprecedented, noting that the pressure to feed the abducted girls might have contributed to the desperation of the insurgents to steal and kill the villagers in the process.
One of the villagers, Bukar Umar, who resides in Kamuyya village in Borno State, told one of our correspondents that though it was normal for the insurgents to ask communities to contribute money towards “God’s work,’’ they were usually satisfied when communities raised money for them.
He, however, said the insurgents in recent times had stepped up their activities by invading their communities and carting away food items.
With the pressure on Nigerian soldiers to clamp down on the Islamic sect, it was learnt that the insurgents no longer felt safe to go to markets to buy food items for fear of being arrested.
Some of the insurgents recently met their waterloo in Madagali, Adamawa State, where they were given up by a local food vendor from whom they had planned to buy foodstuffs.
Consequently, members of a vigilance group pounced on them and killed over 70 of them while seven others were reportedly handed over to the police.
The vigilantes acted after they were tipped by the local food vendor that the insurgents were coming to get food before going for a major operation in a neighbouring village.
A Madagali resident, who did not want his name mentioned, had said, “The vigilance group mobilised, laid ambush and waited patiently for the insurgents.
“As soon as the insurgents, numbering over 100, showed up in the village to pick up their favourite meals, the vigilantes attacked them, killing most of them in a hail of bullets.”
Security personnel, during the week, also repelled attacks by the terrorists on Kubla, a border town between Adamawa and Borno states.
A security source said, “The heavily armed terrorists arrived in Kubla and started burning houses and stealing foodstuff, until a contingent of the military was mobilised to confront them.
“The soldiers engaged the militants in a fierce exchange of gunfire to repel them,” the source said.
The source, who did not disclose his name because he was not authorised to provide details of the attacks, added that the insurgent had set to extend their stealing spree to Taraba State.
Residents of Limankara, Kamuyya, Kirenowa, Kimba and Makor communities in Borno State said the insurgents usually carte away food items and livestock after killing people in their areas in recent attacks.
In Limankara, a Borno border village with Adamawa State, the insurgents who killed many persons and carted away property worth several millions of Naira were said to have particularly gone for the available food items in the village.
In Kamuyya village, a resident, Bukar Umar, said over 20 insurgents, who must have emerged from the bush, stormed the Kamuyya weekly market when traders were conducting their businesses and opened fire into the crowd before setting shops and vehicles on fire.
According to him, the hoodlums were well armed with sophisticated weapons, and after raiding the area, they went to the major market and shot sporadically and indiscriminately into the crowd, killing 20 persons on the spot and burning most of the shops in the market.
He said the attack lasted for over two hours last Sunday. “The invaders had a field day wreaking havoc on us. They snatched several vehicles and loaded them with bags of assorted foodstuff, before fleeing the area.
”
”