Seven Students, 4 Others Killed in Boko Haram Attacks on Damaturu

18 Jun 2013

 Police Headquarters

By Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri

The deadly Boko Haram sect, which many thought had been routed by the ongoing clampdown by the military, struck again in Damaturu, the Yobe State capital, on Sunday night launching attacks on a secondary school and military checkpoint, which resulted in the death of 11 persons and injury of nine others.

Confirming the incident to journalists, the spokesman of the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Yobe State, Lt. Eli Lazarus, said 11 people were killed in separate attacks as suspected members of the Boko Haram sect attacked the Government Secondary School (GSS), Damaturu and a military checkpoint, also in Damaturu.

Lazarus, in a statement yesterday, disclosed that two teachers and two insurgents were killed during the separate attacks, which equally led to the death of seven innocent students.

He also revealed that apart from the 11 killed; three soldiers were critically injured in the clash that lasted for over five hours.

Lazarus also said three of the suspected Boko Haram members, who launched the attacks, were caught alive and were in the custody of the JTF.
The medical officer of the Damaturu Specialist Hospital, Dr. Salem M Umar, also confirmed the incident, explaining that 11 corpses were brought to the hospital.
He said seven students of GSS Damaturu, two teachers of the school and two members of the Boko Haram sect were brought in dead.

He told journalists last night that six other students sustained varied degrees of injuries and were receiving treatment at the Damaturu Specialist Hospital.

Some of the survivors of the attacks, Mohammed Ya’u (SS3 student), Abdulkadir Mohammed (SS2) and Goni Abubakar (SS1), who spoke to journalists in Damaturu, said the suspected insurgents stormed their hostels a few minutes after 9 pm on Sunday and started shooting sporadically, and that they had to flee through the windows and doors of the school.

The insurgents, who they said were more than a dozen in number, also compelled some of the students to direct them to the teachers’ quarters, which they stormed to kill the teachers.

Sunday's attacks ended nine months of relative peace enjoyed in Damaturu, which recently led to the state government's decision to reduce the curfew imposed on the town.

The attacks resulted in heavy security screening of commuters in the town Monday.

Boko Haram denies losing Nigeria battle

 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/05/201353044026628480.html

The Boko Haram armed group has claimed that a military offensive launched against it by the Nigerian military is failing.
"My fellow brethren from all over the world I assure you that we are strong, hale and hearty since they launched this assault on us following the state of emergency declaration," Abubakar Shekau, the group's leader, said in a video released on Wednesday.
Shekau's statement was the first since President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on May 14 in three northeastern states worst hit by the Boko Haram-led insurgency.
"When they launch any attack on us you see soldiers fleeing and throwing away their weapons like a rabbit that is been hunted down," Shekau added, speaking in a mixture of Arabic and the Hausa language common in northern Nigeria. He was dressed in camouflage with an AK-47 rifle resting behind him.
Shekau asked his brethren in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria to join what he called Boko Haram's Holy War.
It was not clear when the video was recorded, but the mention of the state of emergency dates it to after May 14.
Thousands of extra troops were sent to the region and Boko Haram camps were hit with air strikes. The military has since claimed that insurgents have been halted.
The military intervention followed a surge in violence in Nigeria's northeast by Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state there, but Shekau denied he was losing the battle.
Military surge
The military assault in the semi-deserts along the borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger is Jonathan's biggest effort yet to end the insurgency. Security sources said soldiers from Niger and Cameroon were also involved.
Nigeria's population of 170 million is split roughly evenly between Christians, who dominate in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.
Boko Haram and other armed groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Ansaru have become the biggest risk to stability in Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer and second largest economy.
Western governments are concerned that Nigerian Islamists are strengthening ties with al-Qaeda linked groups in the Sahel, drawing on weapons from recent Libyan and Malian conflicts.
The military has said it has arrested more than 100 fighters, freed hostages and killed several Boko Haram members in recent days.
Shekau said only seven Boko Haram members have been killed since the offensive began.
Nigeria's defence ministry said last week that the armed group had been dislodged but security experts doubt it will be easy to defeat an enemy adept at re-arming and counter-attacking in remote regions where they have operated for years.

UN warns of Nigeria refugee crisis

Thousands of civilians flee Nigerian military offensive against Boko Haram as new refugee crisis beckons in Africa. Azad Essa Last Modified: 18 Jun 2013 17:36

The state of emergency has made remote regions almost inaccessible [C. Arnaud/UNHCR]

Thousands of people are fleeing to Chad, Niger and Cameroon as the crisis in neighbouring Nigeria deepens, the UN refugee agency has said. UNHCR officers said on Tuesday that up to 3,000 refugees had arrived in Cameroon amid reports of at least 6,000 people escaping to Niger over the past weeks as the confrontation between the Nigerian army and the Boko Haram group intensified in the country's northeast. "The immediate priority is to secure food and shelter as refugees are entering extremely harsh and difficult areas," Fatou Lejeune-Kaba, Africa spokesperson for UNHCR, told Al Jazeera. Cameroon had initially closed its border with Nigeria to prevent members of Boko Haram to enter, but after June 11, the border was re-opened, the UNHCR said. With fighting only intensifying, and about 3,000 people arriving between June 11-13 alone, there are concerns that this may be the start of a large exodus from the region. New arrivals The government of President Goodluck Jonathan embarked on a major military offensive on May 15 to root out the Boko Haram group responsible for a series of bloody attacks in the African country over the past four years, killing hundreds of people. A state of emergency was imposed on the Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in a response to the rising attacks, raising concerns of human rights activists of possible violations against civilians. The UNHCR said crossings into Cameroon began a week ago, with most of the refugees being women and children. Refugees are being hosted in churches and schools, and relying on food from the local population. We are working with the authorities to relocate the refugees to safer places away from the border, away from possible fighting, Lejeune-Kaba said. Meanwhile in Niger, trucks carrying aid was dispatched from Niamey to the southeastern Diffa region, where more than 6,000 people have arrived from northern Nigeria in the past weeks. This includes Nigerian nationals as well as returning Niger nationals and others nationalities. Most of the new arrivals in Niger traveled on foot from rural villages across the border and from Maiduguri and Baga towns. In Chad, refugees have been arriving in small numbers, saying their homes were destroyed after the military accused them of harbouring Boko Haram fighters. Military offensive Aid organisation and media have been banned from accessing the frontlines and there have also been complaints that mobile networks were shut down since the offensive started, effectively cutting off the region from the rest of the country and the world. "The situation is not getting the attention it deserves," Lejeune-Kaba, from the UNHCR, said. In late May, Amnesty International urged Nigerian authorities not to use the state of emergency in the north eastern regions as an excuse to commit human rights violations. Amnesty said detainees were being held without access to lawyers, or being officially charged with a crime. The human rights group also claimed that services had come to a standstill with schools closed and some towns resembling 'ghost towns'.