adminMAIDUGURI. — At least 17 people were killed in an attack on a village in north-eastern Nigeria, close to the town of Chibok where hundreds of schoolgirls were kidnapped last month, witnesses said.
Gunmen stormed the village of Alagarno late on Tuesday and stole food, razed homes and fired on fleeing civilians. The attack came hours after twin car bombs exploded at a crowded bus terminal and market in Nigeria’s central city of Jos, killing at least 118 people.
“It was a sudden attack,” said Alagarno resident Haruna Bitrus, in an account supported by other locals.
“They began shooting and set fire to our homes. We had to flee to the bush,” he added.
Many of those who fled Alagarno, ran to Chibok, where the armed group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls on April 14.
Meanwhile in Jos, rescue workers continued to comb through the rubble of the twin explosions. Mohammed Abdulsalam, a co-ordinator with the National Emergency Management Agency, said fires raged in buildings after the blasts and he expected more bodies to be found.
“We’ve now recovered 118 bodies from the rubble. This could rise by morning, as there is still some rubble we haven’t yet shifted.”
Officials said that the bombs were concealed in a truck and a minibus. The second blast killed some of the rescue workers who rushed to the scene, which was obscured by billows of black smoke.
“It’s horrifying, terrible,” said Mark Lipdo of the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian charity based in Jos, who described the smell of burning human flesh.
Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from the capital, Abuja, said there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Jos attack.
“However, suspicion will most likely fall on the group Boko Haram,” he said.
The group has stepped up its use of explosives in attacks that are spreading far beyond its core area of operation, including two in Abuja last month. A suicide car bomber also killed five people on a street of bars and restaurants in the northern city of Kano on Sunday evening, in an area mostly inhabited by southern Christians.
Boko Haram, who claimed responsibility for the schoolgirls’ abduction in Chibok, has been trying to overthrow the government of Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. Thousands have been killed in the armed group’s five year uprising. The Nigerian government has been heavily criticised for failing to find the hundreds of girls who were taken from their school by members of Boko Haram in April. And, as the violent activities of the terror group persist,the Nigerian government yesterday said if the war against terror must be won, there must be unity of purpose among Nigerians.
It equally noted that the war against terror was a Nigerian war, adding that only co-operation among Nigerians would defeat it.
Briefing State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, Information Minister, Labaran Maku said “it is our understanding that will isolate the evil. It is the unity of purpose in the country that will lead to victory over terrorism.
“We need greater unity to be able to break into what is going on and defeat it, and that is why the grandstanding and politicking that is associated with the fight against terror is increasing the tempo of the activities of terrorists. The variety of opinion amongst the political class feeds into the confidence of terror groups because their objective is to divide public opinion and continuously penetrate the Nigerian society and destroy it”. — Al Jazeera/This Day
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