Maiduguri | On Saturday, at least 110 civilians were coldly killed while working in their fields, according to a new United Nations report. It is the deadliest attack on civilians this year in northeast Nigeria, which has been in the throes of a jihadist insurgency for more than a decade.
The massacre took place on the day of local elections in that state, the first to be held since the start of the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009. Since that date, more than 36,000 have been killed and more than two million people have been killed. had to flee their home.
“On November 28, in the early afternoon, armed men arrived on motorcycles and carried out a brutal attack on men and women working in fields in Koshobe,” the humanitarian coordinator of the Koshobe said on Sunday. UN in Nigeria, Edward Kallon.
“At least 110 civilians were coldly killed, and many more injured in this attack,” he added, in what he called “the most violent attack against innocent civilians this year”.
The UN press release does not mention the jihadist group Boko Haram, nor its dissident faction the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap), which is increasing violence in this region and controlling part of Nigerian territory.
The attack took place in a paddy field less than ten kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, the epicenter of the Islamist insurgency. Last month, 22 farmers were already killed in their fields, not far from this city.
Farmers, fishermen and loggers are regularly targeted by jihadists, who accuse them of transmitting information to the army or of not paying jihadist “tax”, compulsory for exercising economic activity in certain areas of Borno.
“Slaughtered”
On Saturday, the head of a pro-government vigilante group had reported 43 dead.
“We found 43 lifeless bodies, all of them had their throats cut,” Babakura Kolo told AFP. “It is undoubtedly the work of Boko Haram which operates in the region and frequently attacks farmers.”
The inhabitants indiscriminately designate the jihadists in this region as elements of Boko Haram, whether they belong to this group or to Iswap.
But the group affiliated with the Islamic State group is most active in the area where the attacked village is located, said on Twitter Bulama Bukarti, analyst for sub-Saharan Africa at the Tony Blair Institute.
The first 43 victims were buried on Sunday in the nearby village of Zabarmari, in the presence of the governor of Borno State, Babaganan Umara Zulum, as the search for other victims in these marshy and hard-to-reach waters continued.
The governor said Sunday that 70 farmers had been killed, while warning that this toll could increase in the coming hours.
Among the victims were dozens of farm workers from Sokoto State, about 1,000 km to the west, who had traveled to Borno State to find work in the rice fields.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari “condemned” Saturday night “the murder of these farmers devoted to their work by terrorists,” in a statement. “The whole country is hurt by these senseless assassinations,” he added.
Food crisis
The attack came on election day for regional representatives and councilors from 27 constituencies in Borno state, a poll postponed since 2008 for security reasons.
For several months, the authorities have encouraged the displaced people to return to their villages, claiming that it is no longer possible to take them in charge in camps protected by the army and where they live off food distributions.
The estimated two million people displaced by the conflict no longer have access to their fields and depend almost entirely on humanitarian aid to survive, but a number of them have returned to their villages, in relocation operations organized by the State. of Borno.
These rural communities are “facing untold hardships. Helping them cultivate land and rebuild their livelihoods (…) is the only way to avoid an imminent food crisis in Borno State, ”the UN warned in its statement.
The conflict that has lasted for more than ten years has created a dramatic humanitarian crisis, recently exacerbated by poor harvests and restrictions linked to the coronavirus.
About 4.3 million people were food insecure in June 2020, during the lean season. The UN predicts that this figure will increase by 20% next year in the same season.