This attack was carried out on Saturday in the village of Mudu, in the state of Borno near the border with Chad. It would have been perpetrated by jihadists from the Islamic State organization in West Africa.
Le Monde with AFP
Thirty people were killed on Saturday, May 22, in northeast Nigeria in an attack by jihadists in retaliation against an army raid, we learned from two militias officials. It was not known until Tuesday May 24 due to the poor quality of the communications network, the jihadists having destroyed several telecommunications relays in the region. The thirty victims were “scrap dealers who were in the region looking for charred vehicles, which are numerous in the villages of the north of Borno due to terrorist attacks,” Babakura said to France-Presse (AFP) agency (AFP) Kolo, leader of a militia in the regional capital Maiduguri.
Men killed in the attack had come on foot from camps for displaced people from the city of Rann, 80 km away. According to another militia leader, Umar Ari, the Islamic State in West Africa (EIAO) accused the scrap dealers of having informed the army on their positions in the region. “The thirty men were unlucky to be in the sector when the terrorists were crying for their two commanders killed in a military operation,” said ARI to AFP.
Clashes that plague the whole region
In recent weeks, the Nigerian army has successfully led land and air raids against Boko Haram and Eiao, killing several jihadist commanders. Separated from Boko Haram in 2016, the organization gradually hoisted to the rank of the most powerful jihadist group in the region.
The two entities are increasingly attacking civilians, especially the loggers, farmers and breeders, which they accuse of spying them. Violence has killed more than 40,000 and forced some 2.2 million people to leave their homes in northeast Nigeria since 2009, according to the UN. Most displaced people live in camps and depend on the food aid provided by humanitarian organizations. Many of them are forced to shoot down trees in this arid region to obtain firewood, and to recover scraps they sell to buy food.
Djihadist violence in Nigeria have extended to Niger, Chad and Cameroon Voisins. To fight them, the armies of the four countries, as well as that of Benin, reactivated in 2015 a mixed multinational force (FMM), created in 1994 but very little operational since.