Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Boko Haram Kills More Than Ebola as Insurgency Spirals Out of Control
Although Nigeria was able to tackle the Ebola
crisis much more effectively than other African countries, it remains
stricken by the insurgency of jihadist group Boko Haram in the north
west of the country, a crisis which is proving to be even more deadly
than the killer disease.
More people have been killed in Nigeria by Boko Haram than
have died in the entire Ebola epidemic, and the bloodletting seems to be
only getting worse, with local officials reporting the slaughter of at
least 2,000 people in the town of Baga in the Borno State.
It’s estimated that 8,235
people have died from Ebola in west Africa, according to the World
Health Organisation (WHO), while according to the Council for Foreign
Relations, 10,000
people have been murdered at the hands of Boko Haram in the last year
alone - an estimate that doesn’t take into account the latest and
bloodiest massacre.
The bodies of Baga residents are still reportedly strewn
throughout the town and surrounding bush more than a week after the
massacre of thousands in 16 villages in Borno state.
An estimated 30,000 people are seeking refuge away from their homes, according to the Independent,
with thousands flooding to the islands of Lake Chad. “Baga is not
accessible because it is still occupied by Boko Haram,” senator Maina
Ma'aji Lawan of northern Borno state told CNN.
Amnesty International called it “the deadliest massacre”
committed by Boko Haram so far, a claim that the Nigerian military have
accepted as “quite valid”. The group, whose name translates as “Western
education is sin”, emerged in 2009 with the goal of establishing an
Islamic state in the religiously divided country.
Amnesty International’s Nigeria researcher, Daniel Eyre
said that changes within the Nigerian military need to occur before
attacks on civilians will stop. “What’s clear is that the response by
the Nigerian military has not been sufficient,” he said, adding that the
escalation of attacks showing no sign of slowing down.
What’s more, the current crisis in Nigeria is likely to
continue to escalate with the impending general election in February,
according to Lizzy Donnelly, the assistant head of the Africa programme
at Chatham House. “There are risks around political and post-election
violence and the dangers of militants bringing the chaos to a greater
level,” she said.
In another attack in Maiduguri, also in Borno, over the
weekend, 20 people were killed and 18 others injured when a young female
suicide bomber detonated explosives in a market on Saturday. The bomber
appeared to be around 10 years old according to local police. It’s
thought that Boko Haram is behind the attack.
Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and
president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference expressed fears that this
is only the beginning, telling the Independent:
"I believe that Boko Haram and their allies want to cause more harm,
more destruction. We are just hoping a remedy can be found and this
terrible situation be brought to an end."
Newsweek contributing editor and author of The Hunt for Boko Haram,
Alex Perry, called the Nigerian insurgency “agonizing to watch”, saying
that despite encouragement for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to
provide international aid, only Nigeria is capable of bringing an end
to the killing.
Perry says that international aid is ineffective because it
involves cooperation from the Nigerian military, which is where the
roots of Nigeria’s corruption lie.
“You have to be very careful with the kind of intervention
you impose,” Perry said. “Of course everyone wants to assist, but it’s
difficult to do that effectively in Nigeria. There is nothing that we
can do. ”
“Getting rid of gangsters that run Nigeria will take
generations,” Perry said. “It is highly questionable if the Nigerian
government even cares about the massacre.” He added that even if they do
care, they don’t have the tools to eradicate the problem.
“The solution is not to flood area with foreign assistance,
that’s exactly what the military want,” Perry said, adding that the
popular #BringBackOurGirls campaign that was a response to 267 girls who
were kidnapped from Chibok Secondary School in April 2013 provided
exactly the kind of attention the extremists had been hoping for.
“The irony of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign is that Boko
Haram were angling for that kind of attention for a long time. They
wanted to raise awareness, and when they got the attention they wanted,
they carried out a series of other massacres in order to retain it.”
Perry believes the key to helping Nigeria - as with the
Ebola epidemic - is going in and making the existing government work
better. “It is more effective to assist Africans in what they are
already doing rather than taking impetus away from them,” he said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment