A dozen people were killed and several others are missing after an attack by jihadists on Sunday 04 November, in rice fields in Borno state (northeastern Nigeria), local residents said on Monday November 6.
Farmers are often targeted by Islamists in the northeast of the country, where they have claimed some 40,000 lives and displaced more than two million since 2009. The attackers, suspected of belonging to Boko Haram, stormed rice fields on Sunday evening in the Zabarmari district, close to the regional capital Maiduguri. According to local sources, they slit the throats of some inhabitants and abducted others.
Farmers in the village of Karkut were in their plantations overnight to protect their crops from theft, before transporting them home the following morning.
“We found 11 corpses, all with their throats slit by the Boko Haram attackers”, said Babakura Kolo, leader of the local anti-jihadist militia who helped evacuate the victims. Several people are missing and four victims survived their injuries and were taken to hospital.
The funerals of the 11 victims took place at Zabarmari’s central mosque on Monday afternoon. Attacks by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) on farmers, loggers, shepherds and fishermen have intensified as the jihadists accuse them of passing on information to the army and local militias fighting them.