When three girls showed up on Monday at a camp for people who had fled the militant group Boko Haram, they were welcomed and offered a place to sleep.
However, early on Tuesday morning, as the first light spread across the sprawling camp, two of the girls blew themselves up with bombs they had been concealing, killing 58 people and wounding 78.
The victims were among the more than 50,000 people who had been forced from their homes by Boko Haram’s rampages, only to be confronted with the same horror in the very place they had sought refuge.
The episode at the Dikwa camp for displaced persons follows a pattern of murderous attacks that Boko Haram has carried out since the Nigerian military began rooting the militants from strongholds across the northern part of the country.
Yet Tuesday’s attack could have been worse. One of the would-be bombers recognized her parents and siblings in the camp and decided not to detonate her device, Sani Datti of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said.
Instead, the girl surrendered to the authorities and warned that future attacks were being planned for the camp, according to other emergency officials.
Since taking office, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has made destroying Boko Haram a chief imperative. His reorganization of the military and new cooperation with countries that neighbor the north of Nigeria has proved effective. The new offensive has scattered fighters who once dominated numerous villages.
Yet while on the run in recent months, members of the group have managed to carry out assaults across the country’s north as well as across national borders that have left hundreds dead. This month, in the village of Dalori, Boko Haram burned homes, massacred civilians and abducted children.
The extremist group has long used suicide bombers, but increasingly has deployed women and young girls. The explosives they carry are often concealed under religious gowns.
Boko Haram has been shifting tactics with bombers, hiding explosives in a bag of okra in one attack and having attackers pretend to be mentally ill.
The group has also attacked camps established for people who have fled its violence. Last fall, a bomb killed seven people at the Malkohi camp in a neighboring state.
Tuesday morning’s attack on the Dikwa camp was apparently carried out in revenge after Nigerian soldiers had stormed a market that Boko Haram was operating in the village of Boboshe.
Soldiers killed 100 Boko Haram members during the raid, local officials said, and freed as many as 1,000 women and girls who were being held, some as sex slaves. The women and girls were taken to the Dikwa camp.
Officials have been relocating people from the camp back to their home villages that have been declared safe from Boko Haram.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was