Civilians hit as Boko Haram, army clash

Women and children, used as human bombs, seen as potential threat

The four women lay dazed on the beds of the clinic. The face of one of them was burnt. Another broke her leg during the Nigerian army offensive against Boko Haram Islamists in their village.

Civilians have often been collateral damage in the conflict that has raged in remote northeast Nigeria for nearly eight years, leaving at least 20,000 dead and more than 2.6 million homeless.

The women wait for their wounds to heal in the heat.

“Boko Haram fighters would come to their village to steal food and hide,” a nurse explained. “The army went there and put the women in a truck to evacuate them. The military set the village on fire, so the insurgents couldn’t hide anymore. But the fire ‘jumped’ in the truck.”

Screening centres

The women, with their heads covered and gold nose rings in the tradition of the ethnic Kanuri group, still look terrified.

They stare at the walls and ignore visitors, afraid that questions will focus too much on the circumstances of the “liberation” of their village.

The nurse says there are no more men left. They were either killed in the fighting, drafted into the civilian militia or forced to join the ranks of Boko Haram.

Some may even be at so-called “screening” centres, where soldiers pass judgement on whether local men have been involved in the insurgency. Such checks can take weeks or months, especially if the men are Kanuri like the majority of Boko Haram.

James Adewunmi Falode, a security analyst at the University of Lagos who tracks the conflict, said Boko Haram’s resemblance to “ordinary citizens” was making the fight against them harder.

“They are not a military adversary that can be easily identified and destroyed on the battlefield. These people can easily blend into the general population when the situation demands,” he said.

Even women and children, who have been repeatedly used by the group as human bombs, are a potential threat, explaining the tensions between the military and the public.

More than five million people are in desperate need of food, according to the United Nations.

“In liberated areas there is no fuel, no communication, no public transport … even the food it’s all controlled by the army,” said one official for a major international aid agency.