Boko Haram
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A Boko Haram ambush on an oil survey team and an ensuing battle with Nigerian security forces has left more than 50 people dead. Details are still emerging about exactly what happened.
More than 50 people have been killed in northern Nigeria in an ambush by 'IS' militant group, Boko Haram. The victims were part of an oil exploration team, and included soldiers, civilians and staff from the University of Maiduguri. With strict military control over access to rural Borno, details of the attack have been slow to emerge.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been surveying, for more than a year, for what it says could be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin, where Boko Haram is active. On Tuesday, militants are reported to have kidnapped members of the survey team.This was followed by a rescue attempt that has allegedly left scores of people dead.
Nigeria's oil minister said he was still waiting for official confirmation from military authorities on the kidnapping and attempted rescue of people, including NNPC staff. He declined to comment on the death toll.
Rising death toll
According to AFP, a source on the ground said on Thursday: "The death toll keeps mounting. Now we have more than 50... and more bodies are coming in. It's clear that the attack wasn't for abduction. They (Boko Haram) attacked just to kill."
In Magumeri, 50 kilometres (32 miles) northwest of Maiduguri, an aid agency worker has said that 47 bodies were recovered from the bush as of Wednesday evening.
"Eleven of them were badly burned in the attack. They were burned alive in their vehicle, which was stuck in a trench. We buried them here because they couldn't be taken to Maiduguri."
Dani Mamman, from the University of Maiduguri, confirmed they had received four staff member's bodies, and said two of them were academics.
"We got the impression our staff on the team were rescued, because that was what the military spokesman said yesterday. But we were shocked when we were given four dead bodies. This means it wasn't a rescue. We still have other staff that are yet to be accounted for."
Williams Attah, a resident of Maiduguri, described the situation to DW: "From recent happenings nobody is safe, some people were kidnapped, some people were ambushed, even the University of Maiduguri is not safe now. The government needs to come out, put politics aside, and face things squarely."
Setback for Nigeria
The deadly ambush is a blow to the Nigerian government after it claimed success against Boko Haram militants in recent months.
In December, the Islamist group appeared to be permanently in decline after President Muhammadu Buhari announced its last stronghold in the Sambisa forest had been destroyed.
However, insurgents from the outfit continue to carry out attacks and terrorize the population.
Local Maiduguri resident, Daniel Nyam Gwash, told DW: "Going by the full force of their re-emergence nobody believes what the military has been preaching all this while. We have not seen any changes that back-up the claim of the military that they have subdued Boko Haram insurgence. Look at the killing all over the place."
Nigerian political analyst, Umar Baba Kumo, also spoke with DW: "They (Boko Haram) want to show the military that they can still operate, despite the huge security and the strategies that were introduced. Nonetheless the attacks have continued. People are becoming very apprehensive. They are becoming disturbed that despite the gains that were recorded in the past, these people are trying to revert to the situation we were facing earlier. It is very disturbing."
At least 20,000 people have been killed and some 2.7 million more forced to leave their homes during Boko Haram's eight-year insurgency to create an Islamic state across parts of Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Boko Haram is also known for kidnapping civilians, especially young women and boys, for recruitment purposes.
The most prominent of these cases was the abduction of 276 girls from a government school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. Since then, at least 100 of the girls have been rescued.
Two-thirds of Nigerian revenue comes from oil. But constant attacks on energy facilities in its southern Niger Delta oil heartland last year cut production by more than a third, deepening the recession in Africa's biggest economy.
cw, cl/bk (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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On Friday, early in the morning, an explosion was heard in a locality called Meme some 13km form Mora, which killed four female suicide bombers.
Reports from Cameroon-info:net reveal that, according to security sources, the women made their way into the small village without being noticed. One of them at a point detonated her own bomb which killed her and two of the others. The fourth woman was shot by a police man before she could make any dangerous move.
Meme is a small village not too far from Mora which has equally been troubled by suicide bombings. One of its heaviest attacks from Boko Haram was on 19 February 2016, which left 20 people dead and over 50 others wounded as related by info:net.
The village is equally said to be a centre of the multinational task force which is fighting the Nigerian based terrorist group
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The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has been surveying for more than a year for what it says could be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin, a region wracked by Boko Haram's eight-year insurgency. At least 20,000 people have been killed and millions have been forced to leave their homes and flee to neighboring countries.
Boko Haram is also known for kidnapping civilians, especially young women and boys, for recruitment purposes. The most prominent one was when they abducted 276 girls from a government school in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. Since then at least 100 of the girls have been rescued.
Two-thirds of Nigeria revenue comes from oil. But constant attacks on energy facilities in its southern Niger Delta oil heartland last year cut production by more than a third, deepening the recession in Africa's biggest economy.
NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu said the contractors were kidnapped near Jibi village in Borno state on Tuesday afternoon.
"About 10 members of the University of Maiduguri geology and surveying department were abducted by suspected Boko Haram members," Ughamadu said, noting that the group included academic staff, drivers and other workers. The university is still waiting for a report from security agencies.
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Two Cameroonian gendarmes were reportedly killed on Wednesday morning during an attack by the Boko haram insurgents in Sagmé in the Logone and Chari region of northern Cameroon.
This attack comes barely two days after a previous deadly assault in which the insurgents attacked an internally displaced persons’ camp in Nigeria, killing at least three persons and injuring seventeen others, just hours before attacking a military post in Cameroon on Monday morning.Two soldiers lost their lives in the Monday attack as a military post in Gloudjan, in the Mayo-Sava department in the country’s far north, came under attack.
Cameroonian newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, first reported the attack.
Boko Haram has increased attacks in Nigeria and Cameroon in recent months, leaving many people dead and raising questions about claims by authorities in both countries that the terrorists had been defeated.
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A recent Boko Haram suicide bombing in Cameroon on Friday evening left at least two persons dead and four others injured and sent troops scrambling to apprehend one of the bombers on the run.
The latest bombing took place in Dabanga, a locality in Cameroon’s far north region where Boko Haram attacks have multiplied in recent months.
Cameroonian newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel, who first reported the suicide attack, said one of the bombers was killed while troops were after another one.
Boko Haram has been wreaking havoc in Cameroon since 2014, killing thousands of civilians, in addition to hundreds of policemen and soldiers. The terrorists have also kidnapped thousands of people.
In neighboring Nigeria, the massacre has been even worse. At least 25, 000 people have died there while more than two million people remain displaced, several years after the insurgency began in the country’s northeast in 2009.
Thousands of people have also been kidnapped there, many of them turned into sex slaves or suicide bombers. At least hundred Chibok girls abducted in 2014 remain missing.
The United States Department of State in its 2016 Terrorism Report released on Wednesday said Boko Haram killed thousands of people in West Africa last year. Worse, Nigeria was among the five countries where 75 percent of all terrorism related deaths occurred in 2016.
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Cameroon's Information Mninister has accused Amnesty International of becoming a propaganda machine for the Islamist radical group Boko Haram.
Minister Tchiroma Bakary was speaking to the BBC on Thursday at the backdrop of accusations of brutal torture of Boko Haram suspects by Cameroonian security forces.
In a recent report, the rights group accused Cameroon of beating, waterboarding and forcing Boko Haram suspects into stress positions. And some died as a result.
But Mr Tchiroma rubbished the reports, insisting that the country's security forces were out to protect the "physical integrity" of the nation and there was no need to kill innocent civilians.
He remarked that by persistently accusing Cameroon, Amnesty International has become a propaganda tool for Boko Haram.
"Why don't Amnesty International ask Mr Shekau[Boko Haram leader] to leave us alone?" he asked, the BBC reports.
This is certainly not the first time Amnesty International is accusing Cameroon of human rights violations.
But Cameroon has always dismissed every bit of it.
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