Nigeria massacre deadliest in history of Boko Haram

[Lite Beer]

Nigeria massacre deadliest in history of Boko Haram
IBRAHIM ABDULAZIZ, Associated Press
HARUNA UMAR, Associated Press

YOLA, Nigeria (AP) — Hundreds of bodies — too many to count — remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the "deadliest massacre" in the history of Boko Haram.

Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said fighting continued Friday for Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on Jan. 3 and attacked again on Wednesday.

"Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets," Omeri said in a statement.

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

"The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a defense group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.

He said the civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. "No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now," Gava said.

An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2,000 people killed.

If true, "this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught," said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.

In Washington, U.S. State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki condemned the attacks.

"We urge Nigeria and its neighbors to take all possible steps to address the urgent threat of Boko Haram. Even in the face of these horrifying attacks, terrorist organizations like Boko Haram must not distract Nigeria from carrying out credible and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people," Psaki said in a statement.

The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved soldiers gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a March 14, 2014, attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri city. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.

The 5-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram's increasingly frequent and deadly attacks.

Just seven children have been reunited with parents in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where about 140 others have no idea if their families are alive or dead, said Sa'ad Bello, the coordinator of five refugee camps in Yola.

He said he was optimistic that more reunions will come as residents return to towns that the military has retaken from extremists in recent weeks.

Suleiman Dauda, 12, said he ran into the bushes with neighbors when extremists attacked his village, Askira Uba, near Yola last year.

"I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don't know where my mother is," he told The Associated Press at Daware refugee camp in Yola.

---

Umar reported from Bauchi, Nigeria. Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story from Johannesburg.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-01-11

[NeverSure]

"The 5-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders..."

"Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram's increasingly frequent and deadly attacks."

So sad. The religion of peace.

<snip> 9/11. Never forget.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Jai Dee
hateful comment deleted

[dragonfly94]

Allah sits on a throne of over 250 million killed in his name, and counting.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities (Voltaire).

Edited January 11, 2015 by dragonfly94

[keebone]

And to think someone posted on here a couple of days ago that Christianity is the first religion that should be done away with.

[Steely Dan]

As I observed yesterday the pace of jihad is increasing,the human cost of this is horrific. There is one silver lining however, it is becoming more and more difficult for apologists to deny the fact that Islam is the common denominator between all these acts of carnage. It should now be obvious some strands of Islam need eliminating like any other deadly virus. I would argue that there should be zero Muslim immigration to the civilized world until the malignant death cult of pure evil can be separated from the peaceful majority which liberals talk of.

[ThePlant]

There will still be those (on the left) wanting to divert the focus away from Islam on to the often imagined 'evils' of Israel and US foreign Policy. Incredible.

[halloween]

And to think someone posted on here a couple of days ago that Christianity is the first religion that should be done away with.

I'd be happy with second, and settle for 3rd.

[Don Aleman]

I am going to get a whole lot of flack over this comment but : If someone, somewhere, must die then I'd pick either or both victim or killer as my Number 1 & 2 choices !

[ggt]

This would be a good time...and a good place for the world to unite...both Muslims and non-Muslims to confront these animals who are totally out of control...

Bring in a united military to crush these evil thugs...we can not allow people like this to operate with impunity...

[anon022]

Yeah, well, Nigeria. The population of this once beautiful country grows by over TEN MILLION ANNUALLY! That's 850,000 per month! And that's the net total. Are there jobs for the million plus newcomers per month in the labour market?

Nevertheless, may the victims rest in peace, amen.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Impossible

[F430murci]

Yeah, well, Nigeria. The population of this once beautiful country grows by over TEN MILLION ANNUALLY! That's 850,000 per month! And that's the net total. Are there jobs for the million plus newcomers per month in the labour market?

Nevertheless, may the victims rest in peace, amen.

Holly cow. I didn't realize. Just looked it up saw that women average 7 kids. WTH? They don't have the resources to properly care for 1 or 2 children with 1/3 of the population living below an already low poverty line.

No wonder places like these are a disaster. Broke, hungry, live in shanties, but keep having more and more kids. Basic common sense just ain't present.

Bill Gates wants to spend his billions trying to figure out how to feed them with genetically engineered crops. Be cheaper to just send them a boat load of rubbers with illustrated instructions and maybe eventually there will be enough food to go around.

Edited January 12, 2015 by F430murci

[chuckd]

CNN is reporting Boko Haram sent a 10 year old girl into a crowded area with a bomb strapped on her. They set it off remotely and killed 20+ people.

Nice people over there.

[Steely Dan]

CNN is reporting Boko Haram sent a 10 year old girl into a crowded area with a bomb strapped on her. They set it off remotely and killed 20+ people.

Nice people over there.

On one of the France threads someone remarked that so much attention was given to it rather than larger atrocities elsewhere.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/10/too-many-bodies-to-count-deadliest-massacre-in-history-of-boko-haram-killed-thousands-amnesty-international-says/

Well they do have a point don't they?

Perhaps it is easier to turn the French situation into a question concerning freedom of expression, or to rationalize the murders in the Kosher Deli as a response to the Palestine situation. That's if you believe in original sin, which many progressives appear to do, provided it flows in the direction of their choosing. It is also tricky to blame this on western interference or those pesky neocons.

No, the best you can say of Nigeria and two thousand dead is the people down south are marginally less poor than those in the North, oh and a Christian happened to win the last Nigerian election. Of course this is all nonsense, Boko Haram are Islamic extremists, just like ISIS and Al Qaeda, the link is undeniable and worldwide this is the third jihad and like it or not the Jihaddists are at war with the world. There is no need for any press editorials to work out their aim, it's explicit and written down in scripture. It is time to wake up and face down this evil together instead of clinging on to the hope it will somehow pass us by.

[HooHaa]

yet still a cartoonist in france dominates the news

[Morch]

yet still a cartoonist in france dominates the news

Which, by itself, would make good material for a political cartoon...

[F430murci]

yet still a cartoonist in france dominates the news

Because crazy Nigerians killing each other for no real reason happens so frequently it is neither AirPrint not headline material anymore.

It's not just Boko Haram. The government's millitary in Nigeria killed a couple hundred snd raizedf buildings and houses in Baga, the same village, in 2013.

In 2014, villagers told the millitary that Boko Haram was operating next to their village. A few days later, the millitary bombed the village after Boko Haram had left killing the innocent villagers,

I suppose US policy or cartoons are provoking the slaughter in innocents. God knows that would just do it because they are savages.

[ableguy]

I am going to get a whole lot of flack over this comment but : If someone, somewhere, must die then I'd pick either or both victim or killer as my Number 1 & 2 choices !

Leave the juice alone, and go back on your medication.

[JemJem]

Very sad and sickening !

Where is the outrage throughout the world to this massacre ? Why isn't the UN holding an emergency session ?!

It seems that, apart from Syria and Iraq, the country that suffers the most from Islamist terrorism seems to be Nigeria.

And, what the heck is the Nigerian government/army doing in order to counter this barbarianism ? They seem useless.

[F430murci]

Very sad and sickening !

Where is the outrage throughout the world to this massacre ? Why isn't the UN holding an emergency session ?!

It seems that, apart from Syria and Iraq, the country that suffers the most from Islamist terrorism seems to be Nigeria.

And, what the heck is the Nigerian government/army doing in order to counter this barbarianism ? They seem useless.

That's just it, Nigeria's government and military is doing nothing. Military abandoned their posts in Baga before the massacre and the military is committing similar atrocities.

The US and world got outraged when the 200 girls where kidnapped, but, as usual, Nigeria did nothing as usual.

This stuff comes down to priority and national security interests regarding world involvement and Nigerian Millitary needs to sto commiting atrocities and start dealing with the situation.

[arjunadawn]

For the most part these are not muslims killing muslims, this is religious cleansing. While not a christian I do note that Christianity is being cleansed throughout the world at an unprecedented scale. In a world where so many recite "never again" we are doing a very good job at enabling genocide "again" and "again." It staggers the mind that we are exploring the deepest parts of the cosmos, building DNA from amino acids, transplanting faces, going to the moon, building quantum computers, and hydrogen cars but we still permit savages who believe an unremarkable desert god from antiquity can savage the world murdering, enslaving, raping, pillaging, and cleansing because of cultural relativity. It is baffling how rationales are created to defer action on such barbarism, in Nigeria and elsewhere.

[Yahooka]

I`ve been working in Nigeria previously and been chatting to a few Nigerians(who comes from the area around Lagos) about the madness that goes one in the North.The little knowledge(or interest) they have about whats going on in their own country is mindblowing.When I refer to their president as No good Jonathan because of the his failure to talk about or his lack of will to solve the problem in the North,despite of a big military they get angry and will of course vote for him in the february election.

The North-South divide is a giant problem in Nigeria.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Yahooka

[maidee]

ah, sweet religion of peace ...