By Mayank Jain:
The terror we know as Boko Haram from Nigeria has again resorted to killing innocent people to establish fear in the minds of the locals and demonstrated their so called ‘ability’ to wage the war against ‘western education’.
The group’s Islamic Militants raided villages in Nigerian northeast state of Borno and killed hundreds of people. Some analysts have put the death toll at a staggering 400 to 500. The group has been a constant source of violence and terror in the country which is divided into majority of Christian and Muslim population.
On Tuesday, the militants came fully armed to the villages neighboring Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara in Gwoza district dressed as soldiers in all-terrain vehicles, and shot residents and burnt their homes. The villagers had to flee to Cameroon and nearby hideouts to save their lives, but it was too late for some.
“The killings are massive. Nobody can say how many people were killed, but the figure runs into some hundreds. The area is still under the control of the insurgents, and residents can’t go back to bury the dead because of the danger involved,” said Peter Biye, a lawmaker in Nigeria’s Parliament.
The attackers posed as soldiers, asked people to assemble in a group and told them that they had come to protect them from Boko Haram. Then, they singled out men and boys from the group and open fired. Even new born babies were not spared and the guns never stopped firing.
The army tried to bomb the villages to make militants evacuate but it was of no avail since they came back as soon as the planes left. Right now, the villages are filled with bodies waiting to be cremated and the kin of the dead are in hiding, trying to protect their own lives.
The attack has been followed just after they abducted more than 230 school girls to re-emphasize their stand against western education. Some of the girls have escaped but the government is still trying to get others back to their homes. #BringBackOurGirls trended on twitter and received international support but the menace just doesn’t seem to end.
Boko Haram has been active for over 5 years now and stands for the applicability of Sharia laws throughout Nigeria. Being a Muslim outfit, the extremist group doesn’t draw uniform support from the population since many of them don’t believe in the doctrine that the group pushes. On the other hand, Boko Haram is known to back only some of the sects among Muslims and there have been attacks on the others in the past. The Boko Haram commander carries a $7 million reward on his head.
This is a problem of ideology, culture and deprivation more than religion and it should be tackled with stern approach by all the countries of the world before it becomes an international crisis. We don’t need another Al-Qaeda in our world, do we?
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