No fewer than 48 people were killed by insurgent
group, Boko Haram, in Shawa and Alagarno villages of Askira Cuba and Damboa
local government areas of Borno State, respectively.
The attackers also carted away food items after
setting ablaze almost all houses in the villages.
Shawa is about three kilometres south of Kwapchi
village which came under attack in the last two weeks, where 12 people were
killed with several residential houses set ablaze, while Alagarno village is
about 30 kilometres to Chibok town, where about 275 female students of
Government Secondary School were abducted by the insurgents and about 117
kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
A local resident, Mallam Umaru Saina, who spoke with
our correspondent on phone, said about 30 terrorists on 10 motorcycles stormed
Alagarno village yesterday at 1:30a.m. and had a field day before they left.
He said: “A young woman in Alagarno village was
missing during the attack, but nobody knows whether the woman was taken away by
the insurgents who destroyed everything we had and burnt down our remaining
food.
“The most painful thing is that, they did not spare
children. They killed children, women, and men.”
7 Division
Meantime, Premium Times quoted senior military and
administration officials as saying that Nigeria’s Special Forces from 7
Division have sighted and narrowed the search for the abducted Chibok
schoolgirls to three camps operated by the extremist sect north of Kukawa at
the western corridors of Lake Chad.
Sources said the Shawa incident took place on Monday
evening, while the Algarno attack took place yesterday morning.
Parents’ death
Meanwhile, a father of eight, whose two daughters were
among the over 200 schoolgirls abducted in Chibok, Mr. Mutai Hona, has died of
heart attack as a result of high blood pressure, BP.
Another parent, Madam Mary Lalai of Mbulabam village
in Chibok Local Government Area died earlier of heart attack on hearing the
news of her daughter’s abduction.
The news of Mr. Hona’s death was announced by his
brother, Mr. James Yama. Yama, in an interview with newsmen in Maiduguri, said the
deceased who was hale and hearty died last Sunday of psychological trauma when
he realised that none of his two abducted daughters were among those shown in
the video clip earlier released by the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau.
Late Hona, aged 56, survived by two widows, has been
buried in Chibok.
Yama disclosed that most of the parents were neither
eating nor sleeping due to psychological trauma.
He said: “We are suffering in silence. One of my
brothers, Mr. Mutai Hona, whose two daughters were among those abducted, died
last Sunday as a result of heart attack.
“Since the incident, he had not been eating well,
before he developed high blood pressure.
Relief materials rejected
“It will interest you to note that last Sunday,
officials of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, in charge of
North-East Zone were here in Chibok to distribute relief materials to the
victims, but none of the parents of the abducted girls collected even soap.
“They protested to NEMA officials that all they wanted
was for government to bring back their abducted daughters. In fact, most of
those who benefitted from the relief materials were people whose daughters were
not among the abducted.
“If we had seen the corpses of our girls, we would
have forgotten about them. They have turned the whole episode into a
hide-and-seek game with the authorities not letting us know what is really
happening. It is unfortunate.”
Teachers’ revolt
The Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, yesterday, ordered
the closure of all schools nationwide in protest against the abduction of the
Chibok schoolgirls and the killing of 170 teachers from Borno State and three
from Yobe State by the insurgents.
National President of NUT, Mr. Michael Alogba, who
gave the directive while addressing journalists in Abuja, said the union was
depressed and sad over the continued incarceration of the Chibok girls by
insurgents.
He urged the Federal Government and governments of
Borno and Yobe states to exhibit true concern for the families of the 173
teachers.
Alogba said: “The NUT has resolved to hold Bring Back
our Girls rallies simultaneously across the 36 states and Federal Capital
Territory, FCT, today.
“All schools nationwide shall be closed as the day
will be our day of protest against the abduction of Chibok female students and
the heartless murder of 173 teachers.
“At this junction, we demand that both the Federal and
respective state governments should exhibit true concern to the families of the
173 teachers who lost their lives to the barbaric, uncivilised and wicked acts
of terror by paying them adequate compensation to assist in soothing their
misery.
“It is also important to take insurance cover for both
students and teachers in the vulnerable political environment of the country.
Education should be publicly declared as fundamental human rights and
abridgement should be criminalised.”
US troops
The United States of America, USA, has deployed 80
military personnel to Chad to help regional efforts to rescue the more than 200
kidnapped schoolgirls, President Barack Obama said yesterday.
In a letter to the US Congress, he said: “These
personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding
area.
“The force will remain in Chad until its support in
resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required.”
France also has forces in Chad, while Britain and the
United States have sent small teams of specialists to Nigeria to assist the
Federal Government in the search for the girls.
“It has been a most difficult but heroic
breakthrough,” one senior military official said in Abuja, according to Premium
Times.
That claim was supported by another senior commander
from the Army’s 7 Division, the military formation created to deal with the
insurgency in the North-East. The 7 Division is headquartered in Maiduguri,
Borno State capital.
The news is also key for the Maiduguri-based 7
Division a week after a humiliating mutiny by troops of its 101 battalion who
fired at the General Officer Commanding the division, Ahmadu Mohammed, a Major
General.
Military officers coordinating the search and other
officials in Abuja said Boko Haram insurgents split the girls into batches and
held them at their camps in Madayi, Dogon Chuku and Meri, all around the Sector
3 operational division of the military detachment confronting the group’s deadly
campaign.
Another source said there is a fourth camp at
Kangarwa, also in Borno State. That claim could not be independently verified.
Sightings
“Our team first sighted the girls on April 26 and we
have been following their movement with the terrorists ever since,” one of our
sources said.
“That’s why we just shake our heads when people
insinuate that the military is lethargic in the search for the girls,” he
added.
The location of the abducted girls — North-East of
Kukawa — opens a new insight into the
logistic orientation of Boko Haram, responsible for thousands of deaths in a
five-year long insurgency.
President Goodluck Jonathan said the group had killed
at least 12,000 people so far. This figure did not include the hundreds killed
in a car bomb, Tuesday, in Jos and the about 10 murdered on Sunday in Kano in a
suicide bombing.
Boko Haram’s movement
Details established by the military shows that while
the world’s attention is focused on the Sambisa forest reserves, about 330
kilometres south of Maiduguri, the terrorists mapped a complex mission that
began at Chibok, and veered north east of Sambisa, before heading to west of
Bama and east of Konduga.
With the sighting, officials fear that Boko Haram
militants may be seeking to create new options of escape all the way to
Lo-gone-Et Chari in Cameroon to its South-East, Lake Chad to its east and Diffa
in Niger Republic to its north, providing a multiple escape options in the
event of hostile ground operations against it.
Notwithstanding the sighting, the government is said
not to be considering the use of force against the extremists, a choice
informed by concerns for the safety of the students.
