Suspected Boko Haram extremists killed 48 fish vendors after setting up a roadblock near Nigeria’s border with Chad, the head of fish traders association said on Sunday, in the latest violence to hit the country’s volatile northeast, reports livemint.com.
“Scores of Boko Haram fighters blocked a route linking Nigeria with Chad near the fishing village of Doron Baga on the shores of Lake Chad on Thursday and killed a group of 48 fish traders on their way to Chad to buy fish,” Abubakar Gamandi, head of the fish traders association, told AFP.
Gamandi said the attackers set up a barricade at Dogon Fili, 15km from Doron Baga in Borno state, and stopped a convoy of fish vendors around midday, slaughtering some of them and drowning others in the lake.
“The Boko Haram gunmen slit the throats of some of the men and tied the hands and legs of the others before throwing them into the lake to drown,” Gamandi told AFP by telephone from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
It was unclear if the motive for the gruesome attack was robbery or if there were other reasons for the killings. Boko Haram has at times targeted residents seemingly indiscriminately in its deadly insurgency.
Kaloma Zarami, a fish vendor in Maiduguri, said he learned of the killings from other traders in Doron Baga. “The news came to us late yesterday (Saturday) through some of our colleagues who came from Doron Baga to inform us of the incident because there is no telephone service in the area,” he said.
A military officer in Maiduguri confirmed the attack but said details were sketchy.
“We heard of the attack near Doron Baga but we don’t have any details because the area falls under the operational jurisdiction of the MNJTF,” the military officer said.
News of the attack was slow to emerge due to the destruction of mobile phone towers in the area by Boko Haram in previous attacks.
Incessant Boko Haram attacks have disrupted fishing and farming along the shores of Lake Chad. Fishermen from Doron Baga have been forced to abandon fishing and have turned to importing dried fish from neighbouring Chad.
More than 13,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began in 2009 and Boko Haram is now said to be in control of more than two dozen towns in Nigeria’s northeast in its quest for a hardline Islamic state.
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