Refugees Made Homeless by Boko Haram Violence Die at Jihadists’ Hands At least 60 people, many of them children, killed in northeastern Nigeria By Gbenga Akingbule and Drew Hinshaw
http://www.wsj.com/articles/refugees-made-homeless-by-boko-haram-violence-die-at-jihadists-hands-1454265077
Suspected Boko Haram members stormed a refugee encampment in northeast Nigeria, killing at least 60 people, many of them children burned to death in makeshift homes.
The attack spotlighted the Islamist insurgency’s brutal punishment of those fleeing its violence.
The assault began on Saturday night in the small town of Dalori, which houses a camp for Nigerians and other West Africans made homeless by the group’s violence, said a military spokesman, Col. Mustapha Anka. Several suicide bombers ran toward the camp’s gates while gunmen on motorcycles traversed the area firing assault rifles, he said.
The terrorists dressed in military fatigues, as Boko Haram fighters often do, said a survivor, Maina Bukar. Several of them set fire to mud-brick homes with families trapped inside. “I had to run and hide,” he said.
Many of the dead were children, Mr. Bukar said, adding that he helped recover 60 bodies. His account matches that of another survivor, cited by the Associated Press, who described hiding in a tree as Boko Haram militants firebombed homes below him. Three suicide bombers, all women, then ran into a group of people fleeing to a nearby village, the AP reported.
The attack fits a pattern for Boko Haram. For six years, the group has shot up villages, burned down schools, kidnapped children and made the border areas between Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon largely uninhabitable. Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes in that region, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Boko Haram has begun launching guerrilla raids on those people as the Nigerian army has pushed the group into a smaller territory.
The militants have sent suicide bombers to strike the camps where homeless war survivors line up for free meals. It has set up roadblocks and positioned lookouts in tall grass to stop villagers from walking to safety, said people who have made the journey. In some towns, the group has banned backpacks, residents of those communities said.
It is an increasingly popular tactic for jihadist groups. In Syria and Iraq, Islamic State, to which Boko Haram has pledged allegiance, has made it difficult or deadly for civilians to leave territory it controls. Men departing the jihadists’ Syrian stronghold of Raqqa or Mosul in neighboring Iraq must leave family behind as insurance that they will return.
The upshot is that Boko Haram and Islamic State have been able to surround themselves with a human shield of civilians too scared to leave.
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