Submitted by ssaliba on
[5 January 2015] - On 3 January Islamist fighters of the insurgent movement Boko Haram attacked the town of Baga in northern Nigeria.
News started to come out later last week of hundreds of people killed, in what Amnesty International described as possibly the deadliest massacre in the history of Boko Haram.
District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims in the Baga attack were children, women or elderly people who were not able to escape when insurgents forced their way into the town by firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.
Along with deaths possibly numbering two thousand, the attacks have driven some 7,000 Nigerians to flee into neighboring Cad, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
On Saturday, at least 19 people have been killed in a bomb blast at a crowded market in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Reports suggest that a child was used as a suicide bomber for the attack.
The attacks come five weeks away from presidential elections which are likely to trigger even more bloodshed.
Read more details here:
- Nigeria's forgotten massacre: 2,000 slaughtered by Boko Haram, but the West is failing to help, The Independent;
- New Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria drive more than 7,000 into Chad, UN News Centre;
- Death Toll Mounts in Boko Haram Massacre, Thousands Flee, AllAfrica;
- The Boko Haram death toll, the New Yorker;
- Boko Haram's massacre in Nigeria: what happened and why, Vox;
- Nigeria : Boko Haram, récit de trois jours de massacres, Jeune Afrique (in French).