Nigeria truce on shaky ground
Boko Haram blamed as more girls are abducted
JOHANNESBURG — Nigeria’s days-old ceasefire with the Islamic militant group Boko Haram is in doubt, with dozens of women and children abducted in villages south of Maiduguri and other almost daily attacks by insurgents.
Meanwhile, the fate of 219 schoolgirls abducted in April from the remote northeastern village of Chibok remained unclear, as well as the situation regarding hundreds of other women and girls kidnapped in separate smaller groups in the same region.
Around 38 women were abducted from Gavva village in an attack by militants four days ago, according to Michael Yohanna, a local government official from the nearby town of Gwoza. In the same attack, 26 people were killed, he said.
Yohanna said attacks had continued unabated after Nigeria’s military announced a cease-fire last Friday. Boko Haram has battled the military for control of northern Nigeria and sought to impose a strict form of Islam in the region.
“The fact is, that ceasefire is only on paper,” Yohanna said in a phone interview. “Since they announced the so - called cease-fire, there have been continuous attacks in these places.”
Yohanna told a dire story of villagers fleeing with their children into the hills, with no access to food and little water.
Even in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city, there’s little appreciation of the catastrophe unfolding in the region south of Maiduguri, where insurgents have gained control of a large territory and Nigeria’s military has no control.
The day after the ceasefire was announced, gunmen attacked Waga Mangoro and Garta villages in Adamawa state, and abducted 60 women and girls, Nigerian media reported Thursday. On Wednesday evening, five people were killed in a bomb attack on a bus station in Azare town.
Nigerian government officials said last week that they had agreed to a ceasefire with Boko Haram in negotiations in Chad, mediated by Chadian officials. A presidential aide, Hassan Tukur, said in comments published Wednesday by This Day newspaper that the group’s representative, Danladi Ahmadu, had indicated the 219 Chibok girls would be released, but it was not clear when. Tukur said that Boko Haram approached the Chadian government seeking peace talks and further negotiations were ongoing, following the cease-fire.
The Islamist extremist militia is popularly known in Nigeria as Boko Haram, meaning “Western education is sinful.” Some observers have raised questions about whether Ahmadu represents Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, who has not spoken publicly about the cease-fire. In addition, Boko Haram has splintered into several factions in recent years, meaning even if the original group agreed to a cease-fire, others may fight on, continuing to abduct girls and women and to kill boys and men.
There was no information as to whether the insurgents who launched the recent spate of attacks were members of Shekau’s group or another faction.