Four local farmers have been killed in a Boko Haram attack in northeastern Nigeria, civilian militia and residents said Monday. The attack, near Molai village some five kilometres (three miles) from the Borno state capital Maiduguri, was blamed on fighters loyal to factional leader Abubakar Shekau.
“The four victims had their throats slit,” Ibrahim Liman of the Civilian Joint Task Force assisting the military with security told AFP. One of the militants used the mobile phone of one of the farmers to say they had killed four and abducted two others, local resident Usman Gana said. “They informed us we should come and collect their bodies,” he said.
The attacks underline the persistent threat to civilians in northeastern Nigeria, where more than 27,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency began in 2009. The military has succeeded in pushing the group out of urban centres but rural areas remain hard to secure. Farmers and those collecting wood have been repeatedly targeted. Molai has been hit several times during attempted raids on Maiduguri. Meanwhile, more people have fled the town of Rann, near the border with Cameroon in northern Borno state, where 14 people were reportedly killed in a Boko Haram attack on January 14. Rann at the time was home to some 35,000 internally displaced people. The UN said about 9,000 and locals fled to Cameroon after the attack, heaping pressure on already overstretched authorities.
