Terrorist group abducts, executes 5 aid workers
DAKAR, Senegal — A Nigerian terrorist group has executed five men — most of them aid workers — who disappeared while providing assistance in the northeastern state of Borno last month. A video surfaced Wednesday showing the men kneeling and blindfolded. They were then shot.
Nigerians have endured more than 10 years of abductions, killings and other abuses by armed Islamic groups, but regional governments have recently cracked down on insurgents, claiming to have killed thousands. And a group allied with the Islamic State, Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, has responded by killing ordinary Muslims.
The men had been traveling between Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, the Nigerian region hardest hit by terrorist attacks, from the town of Monguno when they were kidnapped. Local news outlets reported that they were aid workers with Action Against Hunger and the International Rescue Committee. One worked for Nigeria’s State Emergency Management Agency.
ISWAP is thought to be behind their executions. Terrorist groups in northeastern Nigeria are often known by the catchall name Boko Haram, the nickname of the original group that took up arms in 2009, of which ISWAP is a splinter group. Unlike the original Boko Haram, ISWAP at first targeted mostly Christians, people affiliated with the state and employees of international aid organizations.
The group frequently abducts and executes aid workers after attempting to elicit ransoms.
Over the past decade, northeastern Nigeria has been destabilized by armed men who grew in power by making grievances against the state and radical preaching. They pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015, before splintering into several groups. Tens of thousands of civilians have since been killed, raped, abducted and tortured.